In The Wrong Hands
by DoubleXXCross
Summary: -X-Over Challenge- Kaito can't say no to pretty gems, even ones from another universe. And the consequences just might undermine the efforts of the last two and a half years.
1. Kaito's Discovery

It was needless to say that Kaitou KID was one of the most impressive people that you would ever meet. However, impressive didn't always mean positive.

The KID was just one of those people that you ended up liking or lumping after a certain amount of exposure to them. If you've gone through life even for a few years, you would understand that some people just were like that. The public opinion of them was two-toned. There was no 'in the middle', grey area. And Kaitou KID was the prime example.

In a way, he was just like Marmite, that 'love it or hate it' sandwich spread. Unlike Marmite, however, liking him and hating him both had their own serious consequences. If you liked Kaitou KID, it was only a matter of time before you joined a fan-club and regarded him as your lord and saviour. If you disliked Kaitou KID, you would be on the side of the police, and in a few years you'd probably want to take a few pot-shots at him from a carefully shaded position. Or not. It depended, really.

Also unlike Marmite, whether you liked him or disliked him was affected by your life and current status. Everybody who can afford Marmite can eat it, and anybody can form any opinion of it. People who liked Kaitou KID were those who had been brought up in small respectable houses. They were those who were liked magic tricks and public shows, who understood that a magician never revealed his secrets, those who respected that the thief would never kill somebody. People who disliked Kaitou KID were either those raised by a police officer, those who were police or those who owned a rare jewel of some kind with a strange back-story. They could also be the members of the criminal organisation who had taken the life of the first KID and been firing at the second one for some time now.

Oh, did I mention that the first KID was dead? Silly me, I didn't.

Kaitou KID had a reputation for being a great thief - the first one, at least, had been a brilliant mastermind. Many of the smartest men in the country had been investigated, but all of them had been clean. At the first, he stole anything that inspired him, returning it a few days afterwards with a note thanking the owner for surviving his troubles. At some point, though, his attentions had been brought to big, shiny rocks; and with a glint in the brown eye behind his monocle he had begun to change his reputation. Kaitou KID went from an uncatchable burglar who stole anything merely for the thrill of it to the world's most notorious jewel thief, determined. His tricks had evolved as well. He was still oddly cheeky, but now he had stopped being an entertainer. He had become more daring, magnificent - anybody who saw the hang-glider swooping in the night would even call him beautiful.

The police were baffled at the change of target, but then noticed that with regulated targets it was a lot easier to know what was under threat. They upped security around each and every one of the most expensive collections in Japan. That was when Kaitou KID introduced his next soon-to-be-staple - riddles in his heist notes. This time, instead of telling them what he was going to take without warning the previous day, they had at the most a week to week to guess what he might be taking. Cops, private detectives and amateur mystery freaks alike scrambled to decipher the codes, of which only two people were able to understand. One, Nakamori Ginzo, a young up-and-coming in the force, became head of the Kaitou KID Taskforce. The other, private detective Kudou Yuusaku, became a famous writer.

However, some years into his career, which had taken him across the world in search of precious treasures, Kaitou KID suddenly stopped thieving. There was no warning, just the disappearance of a man from the spotlight of the world. There had been an outstanding heist - this one, the police had prepared for since the last theft, when the message had been given. It was only at the promised time of the full moon, when the white cap and top-hat failed to appear, that the police came to suspect something wrong. A few hours later, and it was officially declared that Kaitou KID had given up. A few months later, and it was officially declared that Kaitou KID had vanished.

At the time, there had been one accident to relate to Kaitou KID's 'death', involving a stage magician who had died during a performance. Apparently, the trick involved some kind of explosive. Due to some bad rigging, the man had burnt to death, along with the stage and many members of the audience being obliterated. However, the police then denied the possibility that he could have been the mysterious thief, as it turned out that the man had been an informant and a consultant during heists. Then the theory appeared that maybe Kaitou KID had vanished because of this informant's death. The following investigation reaped no results.

For eight years there was no sign of him. The white wizard of the night never appeared under the moon for eight whole years. The Taskforce were kept by the police just in case that strange man ever decided to brighten their doorsteps. However, over the years it became obvious that he was gone. Either dead or simply retired. Whatever had stopped Kaitou KID's last heist remained a mystery, and he became nothing more than a legend.

Until that night when the Kaitou KID stole from a major museum and then delivered his very first heist note in just under a decade. Eager, the police gathered every able-bodied officer that they could find to appear at the heist. And what a surprise when he disappeared, leaving all but a rose in his place!

For the next few months, the Kaitou KID's targets had been varying just as in his early career. As if, after so long, he didn't know what to steal. However, soon he was once again directed to the allure of pretty stones, and then Kaitou KID reverted to only stealing the best and the brightest of the world's jewels. His heists once again changed from the uncomplicated parlour tricks of his early profession to the reckless stunts he was now so popular for. Along the way he gained his new enemies, in the forms of famous detectives Hakuba Saguru, Kudou Shin'ichi and Mouri Kogorou, the rich man Suzuki Jirokichi, and the young child Edogawa Conan. He gained a new generation of fans. His life had picked up from where it had left off. Never mind the snipers that tried to kill him; Kaitou KID was once again living the dream.

And this was the life of our wonderful Kaitou KID, until the fateful day he attempted that peculiar heist...

MKMKMKMKMKMK

The eighteen-year-old boy named Kuroba Kaito was in his house's hidden room, currently wrapped up in the last week's newspapers. It had certainly been an exciting week for the scientific community – an anomaly had been detected off the south coast of Shizuoka. The area screwed up satellite and communications signals coming through it. Photographs taken from space had revealed a large black zone somewhere in the ocean. The area had also become home to a few plane crashes as of late, and so the place had come to be known as Japan's Bermuda Triangle. Though the press reported very little as to what was going on, the answer was slowly been revealed to those who worked out the meaning of the newspaper headings: PROBE SENT INTO ANOMALY ZONE REMAINS UNRETRIEVED.

To Kaito, however, the answer became more obvious when Koizumi Akako stood in front of him that morning.

"Kaito-kun," she had greeted.

The boy had been surprised; Akako usually did not refer to him by given name. He had dropped the newspaper he had been reading that morning (he often read newspapers in the homeroom before class, if only just to see his own grin staring up at him from the black-and-white photograph) and scratched the back of his neck. "What is it, Koizumi-san?" he asked.

"I'd advise you against going near the Shizuoka area this month," she said. "I predict trouble is not far from the shoreline, and it's headed right here."

Kaito had laughed. "You talk like I'm going near that place. I don't interfere with scientific mishaps. I deal with magic alone." He had grinned broadly. "I'm a showman, not a physicist."

Akako had smirked in response, something which sent a chill up his spine every time he saw it. She was about to guess something. Koizumi Akako had this uncanny ability to guess anything correctly. Kaito didn't know how, although some days she just screamed 'witch'. And that was exactly what she seemed to be. Her house was one of the oddest, creepiest Western-style mansions he had ever seen. He had once been subject to a sophisticated mind-trick (it had to be that) involving a voodoo doll, some kind of hypnosis and what appeared to be a lighting system in her floor that illuminated complicated patterns in sequence. One time, as well, he thought he had seen her fly away on a broomstick.

"Then why are you reading about it if you're not going to be there?" she had retorted. The boy had gripped the edges of the paper silently, not letting a single true emotion shine through his confused expression. "I can already see it. Kaitou KID is going to check out that hole in space and time and he's going to be trying to get at the prizes through it."

In a normal situation, Kaito would have probably denied being Kaitou KID. This, however, had not been a normal situation. He had leant in over his desk, his face still confused but his eyes blazing with curiosity. "What prizes?" he asked.

Akako had tapped the desk. "Oh, no, no, no! If I talk about them then you'll go after them!" she huffed.

"Go after what?"

A few members of the class, a tall blond boy included, had looked over to the door to see another girl join the conversation. Her name was Nakamori Aoko. Boyish and lean with an underdeveloped figure – although, don't tell her I said that – Aoko was Kaito's childhood friend. And also the daughter of Nakamori Ginzo.

"Hi, Aoko," Kaito had said. "Me and Koizumi-chan were just talking."

Aoko had glared. "About what, anata?"

"Oh, that thing in Shizuoka." Kaito had leaned back in his chair, flowers suddenly bursting out of his school gakuran. "It's nothing important."

Now, Kaito was wishing he hadn't said that. He flickered through the newspapers, looking for anything that might give a clue as to what Akako had been talking about. Unfortunately, the paparazzi had been intelligent people this time, withholding all the important information. Before they had been throwing facts around willy-nilly, not realising that this was exactly where the best heist details came from when Nakamori didn't vent them all in one of his foolish moments of pride. It seemed they had finally learned the lesson Kaitou KID had tried to teach them ten years ago.

He punched the desk in frustration. Jesus, how hard could it be to find information on this thing!? This called for... ahem, special procedures.

Kaito turned to the personal computer on the desk behind him. It was a greyish, blocky thing from the late nineties, lacking all the sleekness of more recent models, but Kaito had managed to increase its memory and processing power to that of three times the amount of its modern-day equivalent through some heavy-duty modifications. At the moment the computer did actually span seven towers and twelve CDs made up for extra memory if the need arose. The creation looked out of place within the rest of the room's unique gadgetry, but it had grown on the boy.

He booted it up, choosing to make a journey to the kitchen to pick up a snack and a drink in the time it took for the desktop to load. Coming back, he drew his office chair up to the desk and opened up his Internet browser.

He typed in 'Shizuoka anomaly' and waited. Several hundred page links appeared. He looked them over. _Huh. There's absolutely nothing here._ Angry at how his simple search had yielded absolutely zero relevant results, he tried a different tactic. He picked up his newspaper, scanned the front page, and typed in the name of the government organisation whose probe had disappeared that morning.

The website cropped up as the top result. He clicked on the name and was brought to the main page.

He flexed his fingers. This was where Jii's computer training would come in handy.

MKMKMKMKMK

A few hours later, and Kaito stood up, backing away from his computer. His findings blared out from the screen, all retrieved from the organisation's main computer.

The anomaly had been assessed as a tear in space. The probe that had not been retrieved was still transmitting signals, ones that they hadn't revealed to the general public yet. The thing, when travelling through the anomaly, had landed in an identical body of water, where it had floated along for some time. The probe had analysed the water; it was just normal water, with some extra silicon naturally dissolved in it. Although it was only a ten-thousandth of a centimetre in every nineteen kilometres of water at the most, this was a significant difference to the lack of silicon content in Japanese waters. Which meant one thing - the probe had ended up in a completely different place from where the anomaly had been detected. An item of distinct mass and complex design had been transported through space without significant deterioration.

But that wasn't the only thing wrong with the videos that he had pulled from the website just before the firewall had closed in on him. Apparently, the thing had been fished out of the ocean by something with human hands... but an animal's face. The probe had then been taken to some kind of building, where another of the creatures had been, and the two had started talking in distinct English. They had talked about some mystical subject, seven 'emeralds' with incredible power, while the probe was being tinkered with.

And they didn't seem to be treating it as just mystical, either. A lot of the things they had said greatly interested Kaito, as both the Kaitou KID and himself. Especially concerning the long history of the gems and their power. From their phrasing, they didn't seem to be telling any fibs about them. The two speakers had an intimate understanding of what they were talking about (the two seemed to be very close themselves, not using any honorifics when referring to each other but lacking hostility in their voices).

The gems rested, reportedly, on a floating island in the sky. They were packed full of natural energy from the planet. Such energy was unconstrained and could wreak havoc on the world if put to such uses. They were commonly stolen by a human foe with a strange name, one that Kaito regrettably did not memorise.

Talking animals, floating islands, magical gems capable of unlimited power... This being completely impossible on Earth, it led Kaito to the wildest of deductions.

The probe had not only just travelled to another area; it had travelled to another dimension.

Well, where else would you find anthropomorphic animals? Kaito was intelligent enough to know that 'furries' did not occur naturally on Earth. The idea of their evolution was, for a start-off, ridiculous. Animal DNA did not just mutate over time into a pattern similar to _Homo sapiens_ and still retain the behaviours and features of the original animal, at least, not in the chain of evolution found on Earth. Therefore, the things had to come from a completely different evolution chain. The only way to find this would be to go to another planet.

Now, that explanation would have been enough if the animals hadn't talked in a mixture of English and Japanese. That had led him onto the 'alternate dimension' theory. The development of a language identical to English and the similar yet fundamentally different evolution route... this pointed to the idea of Earth in another dimension.

Still, by all laws of physics, this kind of thing should have been impossible. He should know that, he was a magician after all. He had a knack for creating moments that shouldn't happen. And this one took the cake.

But Kaito himself knew that the impossible happened every day. Heck, his most intelligent and entertaining rival was a walking, breathing example of that.

"Well, then... let's see these 'emeralds', then."

MKMKMKMKMKMK

A few days later, a message appeared at the police office. Nakamori Ginzo sat at his desk, and he was seething.

Somehow, KID had managed to hand-deliver the message to his desk. And his name was written on the envelope in a very odd way. He didn't know what was more insulting: that KID knew where his desk was; or that he had replaced the quick strokes on his given name with little hearts.

He clenched his teeth, drawing the paper out of the envelope. No tricks this time; the message dropped onto the desk. He picked it up and started to read. Or, at least, attempted – the first four lines of the message were in English.

_Under the moon, the green stars that mark the teacher's steps hang in the sky,  
The red man's hordes upon the angel's back, up where only the birds may fly.  
One of them might be the magpie's great treasure if the rumour is true of the spread of their shine.  
The black feather from under his wing wonders which of those lights will first catch his eye..._

_If you can't understand what I'm saying, you need to have a frank talk with the military. I've attached the address of the commander whose account I hacked to this note. Hope you manage to figure it out together._

_Kaitou KID_

* * *

A/N: Welcome to the wonderful world of crossovers, Umiyuri. Nothing you've previously written will really compare to this...


	2. Introducing the Detectives

"I hope you know what you're doing, Kaito-kun," Kônosuke Jii said as he was preparing the hang-glider rig. Kaito was sat atop one of the pool tables. The two were in the Blue Parrot, the pool club that Jii owned. Ever since the truth about his father's life and death had been revealed to him just less than two years ago, the KID had decided to make it a home base away from his home base. The spontaneous closing of the shop some days before a heist was seen by the patrons of the club as a bit too coincidental, but since it didn't happen too often, with Kaito working at home more often than not, nobody minded. To hide it, as well, Jii sometimes took false sick days. At his age, he was able to without much question.

"I hope I know what I'm doing too," the boy replied. "That footage could have been fake and only put there to throw hackers off the scent of what's really in that thing." He straightened his black tie. Blue Parrot had a dress code, and he was not one to disappoint. He had dressed in his white tuxedo from his costume to go into the club, swapping his blue dress shirt for a black one.

He pushed himself off the table. "Ah, who knows?" he said loudly, though it was mostly him comforting himself. "Those things on the tape were talking about emeralds of extreme power. Even if it's those guys in black trying to kill me, I'm not about to let a good opportunity go to waste."

"That's exactly it, Kaito-kun." Jii's expression was the epitome of the word 'pathetic'. Kaito glared at him for several moments. "What if this was concocted as a way to capture you? We don't know to what bounds those men will go to to capture you."

"Now, now, Jii-chan! Would they really try to catch me through a rip in time and space?" He adjusted jacket. "It's an alternate world through that tear. Those guys probably won't exist on the other side. Or, if they do, then they'll never see it coming, will they?"

Jii rubbed his forehead in exasperation. Kaito, just like his father before him, was a surprisingly eccentric thinker. The whole of the Monty Python group combined with the writers of _BoBoBo-Bo Bo-BoBo_ couldn't possibly come up with anything to equal, much less surpass, the many twisted and... imaginative concepts that came out of the boy's imagination. And that was just his ideas for magic tricks. Kaito was also one of the most reckless people in the world, something which set him apart from his father, and some of his plans had nearly sent him hurtling down to his death. He supposed, though, that anybody would really have to be insane to go after their father's killers in such an open and, dare he say it, flamboyant way.

"Kaito-kun..." He sat down. "I don't think your father would have let you do this. There's a chance that the men in black are tricking you into thinking there's some kind of strange new world out off the coast when there's actually an ambush waiting for you to walk in. I can't let you go."

The black-haired teenager huffed, and began pacing. "Alright."

Jii stared at him. "What?"

"I put up my hands. Wave a little white flag. The works." The boy turned to look at him, eyes blazing with the kind of fire that hadn't been seen in Ekoda for over nine years. Then he quickly returned to his previous action. "_But_ – and here's where it gets really interesting – what if the black-coats are in the system? Hmm? They... I dunno; they find this video somehow. They listen... and they hear about these stones of unlimited power. These things that have already shown their potential to flood an entire planet. And they know this video's genuine. What do they do then?"

The old man was silent.

"They could build their own ship. Or bi-plane. I don't care which at the moment. And they go into this place and they take these stones and bring them back here." Kaito stopped. "Picture Tokyo in ten years if this happens. Picture the entire world, in fact. If those guys got hold of these things, I don't see the Tokyo Tower surviving much longer. Think a nuclear bomb where the cities don't exist and countryside's been burnt and there are very few survivors. The great artworks in the Louvre? Gone. Sold away to the highest bidder. Forget the Iraqi conflict; the world's at war with itself. Kaitou KID's been lost in the struggle. And I definitely do not see tantei-kun in safe hands either."

Kaito seated himself. "I'm fine with Pandora. Nobody knows where Pandora is. Everyone in that other world knows where these gems are. They're easy to find. The one guy on the tape said that he'd tripped over one in the street once. So the guys in black could easily find those and cause the world I just described to you."

Jii gave up. Once Kaito had his mind set on something, the boy deliberately made it impossible to change his mind. Sighing, he ducked under the bar to retrieve some items and came back up with a number of odd gadgets, causing the teenage boy to turn around and lean over the bar with a greedy smile.

"Take this," he said, holding up what closely resembled a gaudy clip-on earring with several flat panels on one side. "I received it from an acquaintance of your parents a few months ago. It's a mobile telephone device, and I'd like you to use it to stay in contact with me if you're going to go running off like this. It's been known to transmit through thick snowstorms."

Kaito took it in his hand, throwing it up in the air, weighing it and looking over every single nook and cranny of the small device. "I've seen this before," he concluded. "But from where...?" He pressed an inset on the trinket, which made a rather audible beeping noise. He hesitated, then clipped the item onto his ear and admired himself through the shiny surface of the bar top.

"And also," Jii continued, "take along one of these. "He passed to the boy a few small orbs and some tiny little things that looked like the spiked balls from maces without the handles and chains... and with thin spines rather than thick spikes. "The round ones are a few untested smoke-bombs. They're filled with laughing gas." Nitrous oxide. A common gas used for anaesthetic purposes, usually found in a dentist's office or in a surgery. Also used in vehicles for booster fuel, and as a recreational drug. "And the spine-covered ones are... well, they're hard to explain in just a word."

The thief was suddenly all ears, swinging his legs over the top of the counter and resting firmly on it. "I may not have much time, but I could spare some for your extended explanation, my dear Jii-chan," he said, winking.

"They're small devices that emit tracking signals," he said, "but only when the touch sensors on the spines detect fabric. They should be able to send messages to that earring telephone of yours giving you direction and distance. When not embedded in clothing, however, you can use them to amplify your own voice, once again through the earring telephone."

Kaito took, and pocketed, everything in the man's hands. "Interesting," he said. "And stop worrying about me, Jii-chan. I'll come back alright. I can always promise you that."

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From personal experience, Hakuba Saguru, successful teenage detective in a thriving market of adolescent intelligence, could tell you that Kaitou KID was possibly one of the most insane people in the world. And, if not the world, then he had to be the craziest person in the northern hemisphere. After all, he did everything that a world-class thief shouldn't have been able to get away with if he didn't want to wear iron bracelets by the end of the night. KID antagonised the police with jokes. He was always found with his hand in the biscuit tin. He found it funny to throw around flash grenades like toys and shoot cards like bullets. He jumped from the tops of tall buildings in freefall.

Of course, he did get out his glider eventually, but he still jumped. What scared the ainoko, however, was the fact that he did everything that could land him in jail with a smirk. Like he enjoyed it all.

This reminded Hakuba of a certain classmate of his, Kuroba Kaito. Heck, if it weren't for that one time that KID flew in on a broomstick while Hakuba had the kid in cuffs next to him, he'd be sure that Kuroba was the KID. He had the DNA evidence to back him up; the only failure being that a single hair from KID's costume wasn't really enough to convict somebody who repeatedly stole people's outfits for the sake of dressing up as them and fooling everybody.

Kuroba seemed just as insane as KID, if not more. His chief mission was to flip his childhood friend's skirt and find out what colour underwear she was wearing that day... or was it to dye the hair of every class member all colours of the rainbow without moving from his seat? Or maybe it was just to keep Hakuba on his toes. He was spry, intelligent and tricky with his fingers to the point of ridiculousness. He always performed an impressive sleight-of-hand trick no matter what he was concentrating on, whether it be reproducing a newspaper he had only just ripped up or absent-mindedly making roses appear from nowhere while searching his backpack for his pencils.

KID was not too different, Hakuba quite proudly noticed. Although KID did steal jewels for a living, he mainly used it just to call over the police, and then the fun began. KID made jokes like an old friend, and gave the officers a lot of mental and physical torture (Hakuba remembered one time that KID had dressed every male human-being present in a skirt. The only survivors had been KID and the seven-year-old boy who had run after him through the pink smoke). His notes were full of cultural, historical, superstitious and religious references. And to say that the Kaitou KID was not a master magician was an insult to fans worldwide. Several impromptu street performances had left true professionals on their knees trying to work out exactly how he'd done this and that.

Hakuba was proud to chase him, unlike the others. Hakuba didn't ever find Kaitou KID as annoying as he should do. Quite the opposite, in fact. The blond detective was intrigued by the man. KID was a challenge. He was intelligent. He had his own sense of humour. And he took risks.

His risks, however, were a little over-the-top. Hakuba would never understand exactly how he found tumbling to his death so exhilarating. Or being shot at, for that matter.

But Hakuba didn't mind. KID was a great challenge and a great mystery, one he knew he would solve. A person didn't just disappear for eight years without a good enough reason, you know. Hakuba would face him with his eternal question (why did you do that?) and one day he would receive his answer.

But it wasn't really helpful when his father pushed him to analyse the note received by Nakamori and the Task Force. A good mind, Hakuba might be, but he wasn't a superman, and it seemed everybody in the station thought he could crack the code.

He turned the note over in his fingers. "If he's referring to anything," he said, mostly to himself, "it's pretty much an inside joke. Would you have any idea what he's talking about, keibu?"

Nakamori sighed. "That's why you were called over, to infer what you could," he replied. "Are you sure you haven't got anything?"

"Well, actually, I have plenty," Hakuba answered. "Just not enough. What I do know is that he's targeting one of a collection of seven emeralds at the next full moon. That's what he means from 'marking the teacher's steps'; the teacher refers to Buddha, who took seven steps directly after birth. Plus, Kaitou KID always performs his heists within the week of the full moon. He's going to steal them from some high-up place that is hard to reach on foot – 'up where only the birds may fly' – maybe a plane, or just the roof of a tall skyscraper. The owner's name could probably contain the kanji 'red' and they are obviously male. Clearly, that is a lot of information that I'm able to guess at for one of KID's most recent letters." _Not to mention how you've so subtly put your own name in it, _Kuroba-kun_, without anybody noticing._

"Despite all of this, though..." and he almost visibly wilted in front of the inspector, "...KID hasn't told us an actual location, name or time. We have no idea what we're actually looking for, just a collection of seven emeralds on guard at a high place, and since there's no specifics, it's going to be hard to search for our target, especially if it's moving out of the country on a plane. There's another problem, too: the part at the bottom talking about this army commander. If we have to talk to him, it's possible that KID ran into something that's supposed to be classified."

Nakamori growled. "Well, I can tell you one thing," he said.

Hakuba hesitated. So Nakamori had discovered something from the note that he hadn't? "What is it?"

"Don't go looking for any guy with a kanji 'red' in his name," Nakamori said. "This note's in English."

Hakuba frowned. He spoke, read and wrote English fluently, on the same level as Japanese due to his dual heritage status, and he was so used to it that he hadn't noticed what he was reading was any different from Japanese. Such a fact would have hit him instantly, though, if it hadn't been for thinking everything else through. "True. Unfortunately, this also widens our list of possible targets. The English colonists in America referred to the native people collectively as the 'red man'. That means that there's also a chance our target's owner is the descendant of or is a Native American."

Nakamori pounded the table. "The full moon's in two days. We have no real idea of what he's targeting or who it belongs to, only that it has something to do with the English language," he said, plunging into a commendable silence.

"Call in that military commander."

MKMKMKMKMK

"Conan?"

The small boy in question snored in response, the contents of the pencil case he was resting his head on scattered about the desk around him. As soon as he'd walked into the room he'd walked to his seat, pulled said holder of stationary from his bag and immediately shut his eyes, settling after two or three minutes. Ms Kobayashi, the teacher, could only stare at his odd actions; Conan did often doze off during class, mostly during some of the more boring subjects, but it was not in any of the student's behavioural patterns to deliberately fall asleep in the classroom, and Conan was no exception to this.

Edogawa Conan was a nice enough boy, although very short for his age (and months of physical tests revealed that the poor child was not growing at the speed he should have been). He was good at football, most of the students wanting him to join the elementary school's team. He was intelligent, easily the top in the class at most subjects – although he did rather badly at music – and he often did take a nap in class whenever a subject was being retouched upon for the other students, or when he simply couldn't be bothered to look like the other kids. From what Ms Kobayashi had heard, this was apparently because he'd already learned enough of it from his current carer Mouri Kogorou, but she suspected it was actually because of the late nights spent by the carer solving murders, all this being a result of his incredibly unlucky streak.

He attracted dead bodies.

Well, it was more that Conan attracted dead bodies, but we won't tell Ms Kobayashi that, will we? We also won't tell anyone that it was _Conan_ who solved the murders, either, since that was the whole point of him being Conan.

For, you see, Edogawa Conan solved murders and used Mouri Kogorou as a puppet to inform the guests who the real culprit was. And he did it so well that nobody realised that Mouri Kogorou wasn't actually moving his lips when he was talking them through the whole thing. That was just how good he was at speaking. The gadgets did factor into it too, of course: a bow-tie that changed your voice and wristwatch that concealed a one-shot-only tranquiliser gun. The tranquiliser itself was so useful that Conan had now been seen in school to collect buttons – actually, they were cartridges. Just set one into the top of the watch and _bam!_ instant Sleeping Kogorou.

However, today at school, Conan had not brought any of his gadgets. He had certainly not been solving a case last night. In reality last night had been one of the few respites he had ever had since coming to live with the Mouri family. So what on earth had caused our wonderful little detective to flop over in the middle of the classroom and snore like there was no tomorrow? Nobody knew.

Conan had not done anything to cause his slumber, nothing at all. Nobody else had caused it upon him, not even the girl sitting next to him, the incredibly tricky Haibara Ai. The drug that had poisoned him and reduced him to his small size hadn't done this either. And they hadn't even started the lesson yet, and Conan was already knocked out in his seat.

The answer? Well, what was the only thing wrong with the universe at the moment?

MKMKMKMKMK

"Shin'ichi-nii-chan?" he asked the shadow of his former self, who was sprawled over the green leather armchair. "Please tell me... how is it that we're both here?"

The elder smirked, standing up out of his chair. "I don't know... Conan-kun. But I definitely know one thing."

"Un." Conan nodded. "We don't have much time left, and little to no hope. We have no cure. We're nearly separate people now..." He sat cross-legged on the floor. "It's over for us."

"No cure..." Shin'ichi brandished a piece of card in his hand. "In _this_ world, maybe."

Conan blinked. "The note from this morning?" he enquired, although he already knew the answer. Shin'ichi had already told him before he ever opened his mouth.

"KID's going after the Shizuoka anomaly, and whatever's inside that anomaly, KID promises will return us back to normal. But... we're going to have to fight for it."

MKMKMKMKMK

_The forsaken child looks to the horizon  
__And sees a land beyond the abyss  
__Upon it, a glow promises dawn's return  
__Who shall claim that sunrise first?_

* * *

A/N: No, each chapter isn't going to end in a heist note, but I thought this punctuated the moment pretty well. And if you've haven't guessed the crossover already, get researching.


	3. Hardly Convinced

After around five minutes, it became obvious to the teacher that Conan was not going to awaken easily, and she fretted to herself before hurrying out of the room. While she was gone, three of his friends gathered around the boy, bickering amongst themselves as to what had happened to Conan. The fourth, meanwhile, sat next to him and was in no mood for talk. Ai stared at the unconscious boy next to her, gripping her pencil so tightly it would snap under the pressure.

Conan was supposed to be her test subject. Every prototype antidote to the APTX4869 that she created, she checked its effects on him before trying it herself. And he was the _perfect_ test subject. He was willing to let her do anything to him if it meant freedom from his imprisonment in childhood. If you had a shrunken friend that was more than eager to try any way to go back to his normal size, then why not use him to test the antidote? But the problem of having a test subject was that that test subject needed to be in good condition for each test. If he wasn't, then results would be noted down inaccurately. This would lead to mistakes in making the next test, and soon the entire project would go down the drain.

Basically, Conan being incapacitated was not good.

However, Ai was a biochemist, and this intrigued her. Even with her extensive knowledge she didn't know of much that could render the boy unconscious. And when she didn't know anything...

She stepped out of the room and walked down the hallway to find Ms Kobayashi jumping about excitedly. "Kobayashi-sensei?" she said.

The teacher looked down at her. "Oh, Haibara-chan? What is it?" she asked.

"Agasa-hakase is home right now. He is available to pick Edogawa-kun up from school." The little girl crossed her arms behind her back. "Mouri-san is likely to have gone to the police station this morning, as it's possible they could have called him in on the latest Kaitou KID heist, and Mouri-chan is at school and cannot miss any part of her education. Calling Agasa-hakase would save you from troubling those two. Is that alright?"

Kobayashi stumbled. "Y-yes... alright, Haibara-chan. Could you give me Agasa-san's number? I always forget it..."

Ai glanced back at the classroom door. _Kudou-kun, please wake up as soon as we get out of the building. I'm counting on you to do that, at least._

MKMKMKMKMK

Shin'ichi shivered. "Does it seem... cold to you, Conan-kun?" he asked, grasping his shoulders.

"No... Anyway, we've been asleep for a long time, nii-chan," Conan replied softly. "Any longer and we'll be sent to hospital. On the outside, it must look as if..."

"... as if we're dead," the taller one completed, "and, knowing Ayumi-chan, Mitsuhiko-kun and Genta-kun, we probably do look a lot like we are." He stood up, straightening his green neck-tie. "Alright, I'm going to try and wake us up. Go and study every science fact I know in the corner, Conan-kun. See if you can come up with anything."

Conan nodded. "Right, nii-chan." The boy stumbled over to the shelves across the room, while Shin'ichi put his hand on his head. He could do this...

"...Nii-chan?"

Shin'ichi looked down at the boy. "Yes?"

The boy took off his fake glasses, looking his older double straight in the eye. "How are we separate like this?" he asked. "I'm meant to be all an act. I never existed in the first place, I was just somebody you made up over the last year and a half... so how come I'm standing here, with nearly independent thoughts, while you're going to go off and pretend to be me?" He sat down on the floor, pulling a book off the shelf. "It doesn't make any sense to me."

Shin'ichi paused. "It doesn't make sense to me either, but I know this is what Haibara's going to figure out. At least, if this has happened to her and she's got Shiho-san nagging her in her mind, we'll know that this isn't a totally isolated incident. Relax, Conan-kun," he said, "it's going to make sense in the end."

"...I hope so," Conan mumbled, picking out a book and spreading it open on his crossed legs.

MKMKMKMKMK

It was break-time at Ekoda High School, and people were tensed up. And dying. The first few lessons had dragged on for what had seemed like hours. Normally, such a thing wouldn't have been; it was because Kuroba Kaito, the 'class clown' as it were, had not done anything odd yet. Hence how tensed up everybody was. Hakuba, however, was tense for another reason – the military commander did not respond to the e-mail they had sent off, and so KID's heist note still remained a mystery. Checks were being done on all emeralds in the area today; hopefully, they would be able to get something. But for the moment, Hakuba was left to watch as Kuroba started his little show, which happened to be at – exactly – three past eleven and nine-point-two-eight seconds, according to his golden pocket-watch.

Kuroba spread around thirty different flowers out on the desk, some of the other members of the class peeking over his shoulder with mild interest in today's first trick. He had brought the flowers in this morning and, if he wasn't giving them to the teacher, Aoko or Hakuba, then he was using them for magic. He drew from the inside of his sleeve a handkerchief, which was tied to another, which was tied to another, which was tied to another, which was tied to another...

At some point, they all had to stop counting. It was making them sleepy. Kuroba wagged his finger at the other students and finally finished the chain of handkerchiefs with a small flourish, and a bluebird that flew out of an open window.

Hakuba blinked. "That's my handkerchief, Kuroba-kun," he barked politely. Oddly enough, the same handkerchief that KID had thought it fun to pinch just last month. He hadn't seen it since._ Strike one: possession of stolen belongings._

Kuroba examined the one on the end thoroughly. "So it is," he noted. "Yours'd be... um, this one?" He held up one link in the chain, a rather fancy red number with gold embroidery. "It looks like the kind of thing you'd carry around, Hakuba-kun."

The blond groaned. "Not that one, I believe that's Koizumi-chan's," he said. _Strike two: avoiding the blame at all costs._ "The twenty-first, or is it twenty-second(?), the something-around-twenty-first-twenty-second one – I can't even be bothered to count at the moment, good Lord..."

Kuroba scanned down the line for a second. "Oh, right." Pink, this time. _Rose _pink. "Never knew you were that kind of man."

"What kind of man?"

"Ah... the 'pink silk' kind of man. I always thought you were the 'dressy, natural cotton' kind of man."

"Well, I'm not a 'pink silk' kind of man," Hakuba replied. "That one belongs to Nakamori-chan."

The magician looked down at the pilfered handkerchief, spotting two very small kanji. "Oh, right." He tossed it over to Aoko, who caught it with a small blush that neither Kuroba nor Hakuba could miss. _Strike three, insinuating that I wear pink silk underpants. Everybody knows your little knickers fetish, Kuroba-kun. _"What colour's yours?"

"Mine would be white, thank you. With the knight in one corner," he said. "The 'dressy, natural cotton' one, I think you'll find."

"Oi, oi..." Kuroba unknotted said handkerchief. He looked down at paused. "Did you often write on your handkerchief in biro pen, Hakuba-kun?" he asked, turning around. Some of the students reached out to grab at the flowers, but he slapped their hands away.

Hakuba stood up and walked over. "Of course, not, Kuroba-kun. Why on earth would I?" he posed exasperatedly.

Kuroba passed him the cloth. Upon it were the words, in English:

_**M**__y sincere apo__**l**__o__**g**__ies, ta__**n**__tei-san,  
__but __**I**__ w__**a**__s menti__**o**__ned and __**s**__o I __**d**__id require __**u**__se of this.  
__W__**a**__sh t__**h**__is befo__**r**__e its __**n**__ext use;  
__**y**__ou know what th__**e**__y s__**a**__y ab__**o**__ut snee__**z**__es._

_**K**__aitou KID_

"..." Hakuba sped back to his seat.

The letters scratched in thicker than the others spelled something out in English. Why was it all still in English? he wondered as he drafted them all onto plain paper.

M, L, G, N, I, A, O, D, U, A, H, R, N, Y, E, A, O, Z, K.

He could get 'magnolia' out of the letters, as well as 'year', 'dual', 'KID' and various other words besides. Considering Kuroba was doing a trick with flowers, 'magnolia' would make sense, but that wasn't his intention if one were to also apply 'KID'.

In front of him, Kuroba turned the flowers into the morning newspaper. Once again, the same story that had plagued the papers for at least ten days by now greeted the boy's eyes. He turned the page. "Interesting... a KID heist after all of that mess?" he said aloud. "It shoved him right off the front page..."

Hakuba glanced down at the paper, and rearranged the letters in his head, crossing them out as he went.

S, H, I, Z, U, O, K, A. Shizuoka... A, N, O, M, A, L, Y. Anomaly. Shizuoka anomaly. And now he was left with G, D, R, N, E, A...

Garden? Red nag? No, wait, that wasn't it... range... d- range...

Danger. 'Shizuoka anomaly, danger'. There was something wrong with the anomaly? Well, of course there was something wrong with it, it was an anomaly. It was a whole big bundle of wrong in the big ball of timey-wimey stuff that was space and time. But why would Kaitou KID mention it in the first place? He only ever mentioned stuff to do with the-

Oh, God. He wasn't.

Kuroba grinned. "Ah, if he makes it spectacular enough, I guess he might be able to jump back into the top spot, right?"

He was...

MKMKMKMKMK

The small boy on the sofa stirred. "Where am I?" he slurred, feeling around himself for anything. A vision of a blonde woman dialling 'Nanatsu no Ko' into a mobile phone passed before his eyes. Where was the wire? He had to...

He didn't feel anything.

Disoriented, he opened his eyes more fully. Ai's dark storm-blue eyes stared back at him. "Hello, Sleeping Beauty. How are you?"

He frowned. "I'm okay," he replied, looking around. "Did you call Agasa-hakase?"

"Indeed she did!" cried a voice from the direction of the basement stairs. Agasa Hiroshi was a neighbour and old friend of Kudou Shin'ichi. He had a PhD in Mechanics and was more of an inventor than a mechanic. The professor drove a saffron-yellow Volkswagen Beetle imported from Europe. It was something he'd manage to get himself after selling an invention of his (a voice-changer fountain pen) to the Bandai toy and games company and spending the resulting profits. Conan had often made sly remarks about the fact that it had been one of the few successful things Agasa had ever created to sell to the general public.

"Good, good," Conan nodded, and was about to speak again when he suddenly broke into a massive yawn. He attempted to blink the sleep-dust out of his eye, but gave up and huddled into the corner of the sofa again. It seemed to be a new habit of his; that irked him.

Ai crossed her arms. "Be grateful, Kudou-kun," she muttered. "You're out of school, away from the children, and with people who know your identity and are not going to kill you over it."

"Right, thanks," he mumbled. "God-damnit, I only just woke up too..."

His eyelids drooped; fortunately, Ai pinched his nose to wake him up. "Kudou-kun, stay awake. I don't know what's wrong with you yet and I don't to lose you."

"I could just be tired," he offered weakly.

Her iron constitution, though, was not quite going to let him go yet. "You've not had a case for a week. The organisation has made no moves recently. Vermouth isn't antagonising us. Ran hasn't been doing anything recently either. There is no way that you're just tired."

"I have an idea," Agasa exclaimed, walking up the stairs. "How about we give him a little quiz?" Whenever the Shounen Tantei, a group of children Conan and Ai belonged to, went on an excursion of some kind, a riddle tended to get them thinking seriously. Not to mention that Conan, both as a young detective and as his father's son, drank up mysteries like a thirsty man in the desert did a glass of cold water.

However, the response was not as expected. "No thanks," Conan said, "I'm not Mitsuhiko-kun." And he continued to try and wrap himself up in the corner.

Ai placed her hand on his forehead, resulting in a slight blush. "You're not overheating. That rules out a cold. Your heart rate is normal. Are you feeling nauseous? Are there any stabbing pains?"

He hesitated. Then-

"Nothing's wrong," he said. "I'm just sleepy."

MKMKMKMKMK

Akako brushed her long hair out of her face. "I specifically told you, Kaito-kun, _not_ to go to the anomaly."

Kaito rubbed the back of his neck bashfully. "What are you talking about, Koizumi-chan?" he answered. "I'm not going to the anomaly. Kaitou KID is."

"Exactly my point,_ KID_-san," Akako spat back. "Now please explain why on earth you want to head towards your untimely death."

The secret thief sighed, leaning back on the edge of the barrier stopping him from toppling from the roof of the school. Akako liked to call him up here for more private conversations, so that Hakuba and Aoko couldn't provide a distraction. And unlike either of those two, he was unable to make the conversations 'fun'. Oh, well, it would be honesty this time around. Or as much of it as he could give, in any case. "Well, if I were KID, I would likely be heading for the anomaly because I found something on the other side that intrigued me deeply. And if I were KID, there'd be only three things that interest me."

He held up his hand, three fingers in the air. "One, a gathering of police and detectives. Two, a challenge from somebody who thinks they can get past me. And three, big shiny gemstones."

Akako grabbed his gakuran's collar madly. "Those gemstones are going to get you killed, Kaito-kun, and if you end up lucky enough not to die out there, I will personally finish you myself. Then all the men in the world really will be mine."

She stormed off towards the fire escape door and disappeared behind it. Kaito groaned. "Wonder what her problem is..." After all, it wasn't as if he were purposely going to his death. Kaito was an intelligent boy, of the kind that could answer higher mathematics questions on the run from a flying mop and a very angry Aoko. He also happened to be the magician in the moonlight, the thief famous for thinking on his feet, if one excused the purely accidental moment of alliteration there. He was smart enough to know when something was dangerous. A physical glitch in the workings of the known universe fit into that category rather neatly. That was why he'd told Hakuba not to dare coming after him.

But just because something was dangerous, it didn't mean one had to be a coward and run away. He'd already informed a long-time acquaintance about what he was going to. He wouldn't have told him anything if he didn't already have this entire affair under control. He was going to retrieve those emeralds and get them away from those who would seek to use them for evil. He was not going to be sticking around waiting for somebody to take a shot at him. And he had a very good feeling about this excursion anyway. As if things would go even better than he or anyone expected.

Still, Akako would know what she was talking about. Remember, this was 'evil scary witch woman' who had accurately identified him as Kaitou KID despite few previous meetings with him in school and absolute zero with the KID. She had to have some way of seeing into the other world somehow...

He laughed bitterly. He hated Akako's 'magic' – while it did indeed give a show, it didn't make people happy and it had originally been a way to hurt somebody, a role that Miss Koizumi was intent to keep in its possession. He had to despise it as somebody whose tricks only existed to delight and entertain.

If magic didn't put a smile on somebody's face, then what was it good for, really?

And yet, he found himself looking out across the buildings of his hometown. The people after him, the 'black coats' being the nickname he and his favourite rival had dubbed them with, would be interested in whatever he was going after, especially after he delivered such an unspecific message to the police. It was good that the note hadn't even been released to the public yet, but there could still be snitches within the force, and if they managed to gain access to the note and its add-on, then they'd eventually find the video that he'd discovered, and then everything would basically go to pot if they managed to get through the tear as well.

He shrugged. This was why he was doing this, right? Snake, the sniper who'd misidentified him as his father Kuroba Toichi, would do anything for Pandora, the legendary gem that cried tears of immortality when held under the light of a full moon. The emeralds had been indirectly described by the creatures on the video as items of limitless power. Limitless power probably also included immortality. Kaito was willing to bet his monocle that Snake would turn his attentions to them, and if the rest of his group, big or little, didn't notice this sudden change of interest then they would have to be total idiots.

And if the stones ever found themselves in those greasy mitts, what would they do with them? He had a vague idea. That much power was sure to corrupt even the best of the people. They'd try to make the immortality elixir. They'd fail in the process (if they didn't know how to handle these other-worldly powers, then that much was for sure). And then they'd use them for other purposes. These gems were full of energy. Anything was possible once they learned how to harness it, and people like them would use it destructively. They'd probably end up with a world domination attempt or something equally 'Saturday morning'. Maybe a bomb spree around Tokyo, at the very least?

Nope, that sounded a bit familiar... he needed to check up on that one.

Kaito wasn't going to let that happen - no way, José. He'd definitely get to those emeralds first and stop them. People like that didn't deserve power, only ruin. He wouldn't let them lay their hands on them... wow, somebody needed to lay off the manga. He was going to lose himself in this. Maybe this was what Akako had been talking about?

"Ah, forget it," he said to himself. "I'm going, I'm checking these emeralds out and if they look valuable enough, then away they'll fly with me into the stars. That's the end of it." And with that, he began to walk back downstairs.

* * *

A/N: Kaito and Shin'ichi both have simple-to-follow philosophies. Is that why they're so good at what they do?


	4. Hakuba's Deduction

"_I need to speak to Nakamori-keibu. It's urgent._"

"Y-yes, of course. Right away. Nakamori-keibu?"

The phone was passed over to the greying officer, who swiped it out of the younger man's hand. Nakamori Ginzo was ticked. Actually, ticked wasn't exactly the word for it, but the word that I would prefer to use shouldn't be printed. He had sent his men all over the city, and yet the search had unearthed no useful information. They'd been checking newspapers since last night, but nothing so far had caught their eyes. They were out of leads - and by tomorrow night they'd also be out of time.

Which was exactly why Nakamori's eyes glistened like diamonds when it was Hakuba's voice that came from the receiver.

"_Nakamori-san, Kaitou KID delivered me a message today._"

"WHAT!?!?" the man yelled, the noise echoing so far that the inhabitants of the other world probably heard it. "How on earth did he do that!?"

"_Indirectly. He sent it back on the handkerchief he stole from me a small while ago. It turned up in... a student's pocket._" The teenager on the other end of the phone coughed loudly. "_It had a simple code on it to clue us in further. I only needed a very short time to understand and so managed to decode it fully during break-time; third period is starting soon, which is why I've decided to ring now, just before class._"

Nakamori grumbled words that were not meant to exist. "And? What did this message say?" he pressed.

"_'Shizuka anomaly, danger'._"

Nakamori paused. "I suppose we really do need that military commander in right now."

"_Exactly. Whatever KID wants is related to the anomaly and he doesn't want us to follow. That tells us a lot of things. For example, the emeralds he's referring to may potentially exist on a plane inside the anomaly, which says to me that there's something the scientific community is hiding from us. And it's likely possible that that commander knows just what is... 'on the other side'. And that's not a phrase I like to use very often._"

"Alright. We'll try to get hold of him. Would you be happy to come over to the police station again after school?" the inspector asked, turning slowly in his office chair. Some of the other Kaitou KID Task Force members watched him with slight amusement, wondering how long the calm before the storm would last.

"_Sir, I'd be happy to go right now if it wasn't for the fact that I still have to watch over that ridiculous neighbour of yours, Kuroba-kun. Of course, I'm not in any way, shape or form obligated to do so, but his actions are troubling me at the moment. He does happen to be rather devoted to KID and, with the news of the new heist and all..._"

Nakamori sighed. "How about, you bring Kaito-kun in with you? He's been consulted on KID's heists before. Maybe he could shed some light on what KID is up to...?"

"_The only bringing-in I'll do for him is for questioning why_," Hakuba mumbled. Then he corrected himself. "_Oh, what I mean to say is... I think Kuroba-kun would be a better person to ask for on how KID is going to perpetrate the crime, but if what you're asking for is what his crime is going to be in the first place then I wouldn't bother ask him about that. Kuroba-kun doesn't deal in that kind of thing; he only dabbles in stage magic and I highly doubt he knows what's going on on the other side of that anomaly. Kuroba-kun would therefore not be of any use to you. The reason I mentioned him is because he might put himself into great physical trouble to come after KID. He might even attempt to copy his actions._"

"I... suppose I know what you mean. I'll ask Aoko-chan to try and keep him under wraps. Though I doubt you'd have to watch him that close today. Tomorrow is when the heist happens. Tomorrow should be when the guard is raised."

"_Understood... alright. I'm coming down. I'll call Baaya-san and we'll be there in a short while._" _Beep_.

Nakamori set down the telephone and turned to his computer. A message had been delivered to his inbox, much to his surprise. He opened it and scanned its contents. After some moments, a grin crossed his face. Finally.

Commander Stonewall would enter the country by private plane in three hours.

MKMKMKMKMK

Meanwhile, let us catch up with our familiar friend Kaitou KID.

Third period was now well under way. The phantom thief was perched on the edge of his chair, scrawling on the corner of his workbook. Now, Kaito was an accomplished doodler. He had to be to make those heist notices; one could always recognise them from their signature logo at the bottom of a grinning man in a top hat, styled after the super-deformed drawings of the creator of Kamen Yaiba, that entertaining little ditty airing on television.

But this time Kaito wasn't drawing a self-portrait of KID. No, this time Kaito was drawing out one of the strange creatures he had seen on the video. So this was what natives of the other world looked like? Very odd, physically. He doubted it was actually possible to have two independently-moving irises and pupils suspended on one eyeball, or to have an eyeball that took up most of the skull, or to have fleshy tumours grow out of the back of your head and still look healthy. And then the body... he didn't want to be started on that. Indeed, the creature's arms looked – and acted – like noodles with no visible elbow bend, and the hands were of incredible size in comparison. It reminded of him of Mickey Mouse, in a way, if Mickey Mouse could have eyes like Dennis the Menace. And the colour of its fur was a problem in itself. How on earth did one's natural melanin content turn your hair blue and peach?

And these things knew English. Now how was it even likely that non-human beings could develop a language entirely identical to English? Kaito couldn't even speak much of it himself. Yet the things spoke with perfect dictation. Perfect American dictation, to be honest, and that wasn't the nicest-sounding accent of English, but it was perfect none the less. If he bumped into one of these things and tried to make pleasant conversation, things wouldn't go too well...

Well, he'd stick out like a sore thumb anyway. His head was too small in comparison to theirs. He only had visible fur on his head (no need to go into that one) and his eyes were too small. He was unable to judge the height of the animals from the feed, but he reckoned they weren't too tall. Heh. He literally would 'stick out'.

However, there was a problem. Kaito, in his excitement at the heist, had completely failed to find a way to cover up his rooftop visit with Akako. After all, he couldn't just say to Aoko, 'Oh, well, I'm Kaitou KID, you know, and she knows too and so she's trying to warn me not to go to my heist tomorrow, only she wanted to do it in private'. It was the whole point of a secret identity to keep it a secret, so only a few people could identify him as the Kaitou KID. There was his own mother Fumiko, his old guardian Kônosuke Jii, young detective Hakuba Saguru and dark witch Koizumi Akako. Snake probably thought he knew as well, but he'd only identified Kaitou KID as the man who had died ten years ago and so must have amazingly come back from the dead in what could only be explained as a miracle. And as one could quite easily spot that, unless Aoko had something of extreme importance to tell him, she was not one of these people.

Kaito's own personal musings, therefore, about how exactly he would go about greeting any natives of where he was going, were interrupted by a ball of paper striking the side of his head. Once again, the brunette teacher sighed in exasperation, and continued to teach her other pupils while these ones sorted out their own personal problems.

Kaito, amused, picked up the crumpled sheet and spread it out on his dead. A big '_What on earth were you doing up there!?_' greeted him.

Strange smile disappearing from his face, he scribbled a message back, this time without a code. After all, talking in riddles to your best friend who also happens to be daughter of the inspector who'd been out to catch KID for over twenty years by now was not the best of ideas.

Turning around to the desk right next to him, he raised an eyebrow. "We can't just talk about this thing like normal neighbours?" he asked, but was soon sorry he said anything. Aoko was fuming. And Kaito lived next door to her and her dad. And when you knew the parent's uncanny ability to make up new curses (some of them being very entertaining, not that Kaito would directly admit that) and that nobody else was in the house to calm him down beforehand, it was a safe bet that the child would also have adapted that charming feature of their personality.

Grinning like an idiot, he put up his hands in a defensive gesture, and then passed her the paper.

'_Me and Koizumi-chan were just talking. People do that, normally._'

A loud humph signalled the response. At least she hadn't thrown it at him this time. '_People don't take their discussions onto the roof, normally._'

'_Maybe it was a private conversation?_'

Her reply was a lot shorter and carried a lot more weight to it. '_Kaito-kun..._'

"_Fine, fine..._" He scribbled his next message a little slower this time. '_She invited me up there, we had a simple discussion, and I got her angry, which is why she left so tense._'

There was a snort as she read his answer. Then another piece of paper struck her on the head. Aoko looked around; Kaito was sitting there with his jaw wide open. A few of the other students were also looking slightly gobsmacked, and the teacher blinked several times. Raising an eyebrow, she followed lead and looked back at the rest of the class. Sitting at his desk with a slightly guilty expression on his face was Hakuba. Out of shock she grabbed the paper, turned around and unfolded it.

'_Please keep an eye on Kuroba-kun tomorrow while the KID heist is underway. He seems oddly excited about this one. If he tries to follow KID, he could land himself in trouble._'

Aoko stared at the piece of paper, before folding it up and placing it in her pocket.

There was a knock on the classroom door. Hakuba stood up, bowed to the teacher and excused himself, leaving the rest of the class in awe.

Kaito stuttered. "D-did he just...?" he managed to get out, before gulping loudly. "I didn't think he was physically capable of disturbing the class."

"I didn't think you were capable of going a morning without flipping my skirt."

"Oh, right. Forgot about that."

And a regular morning was resumed.

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It was a few hours later that a very imposing man found himself in the Ekoda police department's main station. He, an American, was an impressive height of six foot four with dark grey hair and the most unusual case of heterochromia, apparently a genetic trait of his family. In particular, this man's eyes were an ice blue and a warm hazel, almost red. Hakuba was used to odd eye colours, though, despite the obvious shock to the officers of a human being with the silver and gold eyes of a pricy bob-tail: he had popped down to Beika several times during his times in Tokyo (the area had the highest mortality rate in Japan, not to mention good sushi) and noticed the peculiar number of native Japanese with blue eyes there.

"Your name would be Stonewall-gunshou, correct?" Nakamori asked.

"That is correct," Stonewall replied in well-spoken Japanese. "I received your message and I am rather on edge about this whole affair."

"I understand that," Hakuba muttered. He disliked the sound of the interrogation room; there were no echoes. His voice simply uttered clear and clipped from his mouth with a cold sound. It made him feel artificial.

Stonewall shot him the most incredible look, one of mixed suspicion and appreciation. "May I inquire as to the identity of this young man?" he asked.

"This is Hakuba Saguru-kun," said Nakamori. "He is a high school detective. He works with us whenever he's staying in Japan. We've already checked, by the way, and this is not Kaitou KID in disguise." Hakuba rubbed his sore cheek.

"Why is he present on such confidential matters?" the foreigner asked.

"Because I've dedicated my current career to chasing Kaitou KID and putting him behind bars," Hakuba said. "I have to know exactly what he's getting into this time. The only clues he's left us are two coded letters: one is a heist note describing his next target – tomorrow night, at midnight - and the other is a warning from KID to me that I received at five past eleven and twenty seconds today, this very morning." He held up the handkerchief and his piece of paper bearing the solution. "He directly mentioned the Shizuoka anomaly and attached and your e-mail address to his heist. Your organisation is the one that sent in the probe that disappeared on Monday."

Stonewall clasped his hands together, resting his forehead on them before sighing and looking back up at them.

"I am afraid that the information is classified. I am sorry that I cannot help you any further. You already know too much for your civilian statuses." He stood up from his seat.

Nakamori grabbed his sleeve. "Now just a minute!" he shouted. "I've been chasing KID for twenty years now, and this is the first time he's ever done something like this! We don't even know what he's taking!"

Stonewall shook his head. "I am sorry, but I can't-"

"You can, Stonewall-gunshou," Hakuba said, stepping over to the two men. "Kaitou KID happened to hack his way into your files and whether you like it or not, that means a known criminal has classified information running around in his brain. Now, Kaitou KID may act like a gentleman, but he is still breaking the law and it is our duty to use all the information we can get to stop him! And that includes anything you are willing or unwilling to say. Do I make myself clear, gunshou?"

The foreigner stopped in his tracks, staring at the young ainoko, who suddenly backed away slightly, gasping. The commander seemed to consider his options, eyes shifting from the door of the now silent interrogation room to the chair he had just left behind. Some moments passed; finally, he took his seat again.

"Whatever we speak about must not leave this room," he said. "As I said before, the information is highly classified. There are no men beyond the one-way glass?"

"No," said Nakamori. "I sent them away before our meeting. This room is completely soundproof and there are no recordings."

"Good." Stonewall leaned forward, hands clasped. "The anomaly we are dealing with has been assessed as a special-temporal anomaly – in layman's terms, a rift. The probe we sent into this rift early Sunday night never came back. It instead landed within foreign waters."

Nakamori shook his head. "You mean to say that that anomaly is actually some kind of portal?"

Hakuba nodded in agreement. "It would certainly fit with the note, actually. I checked for islands around where the anomaly is supposedly situated in Suruga Bay, on the computers here when working off a hunch. None of them have names relating to angels, wings or religious characters in Christianity, Buddhism or Shinto. But if he were referring to an island through the anomaly..."

Stonewall nodded. "Our feed also recovered images of some rather... unusual locals."

Hakuba and Nakamori looked at each other. "Unusual?" they chorused; Nakamori took a swig of the coffee mug that had been sat in front of him since the meeting began. Obviously, without any effecting actions until now, it had already gotten cold. He hissed slightly.

A dimensional portal that lead to a foreign place... An island that didn't appear on any maps... And unusual locals? Hang on, it couldn't be-

"Aliens," Hakuba breathed. "You captured live footage of aliens!?"

"The creatures seen on the video are humanoid aliens," Stonewall replied. "We wouldn't mistake them for any animal that lives on our planet; they do share many features that Earth mammals do, but their physical structure, while similar to a humans, is clumsy and overbalanced. However, they still move around identically to a human being. They speak in English and Japanese, and appear to have a wealth of greatly advanced technology for all branches of modern life. However, they tend to display certain behaviours of the animals they resemble. One of them took part of the probe's casing, licked it, and then washed himself, for example."

"Are you serious?" Nakamori asked, eyes wide.

"Kaitou KID's intention is to steal a jewel on the other side of the anomaly – from a strange island on an alien planet that speaks English," Hakuba narrated. "By 'red man', he means that the alien he's going to steal from has red fur or skin. The jewels must have a long history and a reputation for magical abilities or effects. Possibly some kind of radiation."

"You have learned all you need to know. The rest of the information is classified," Stonewall said, standing once more. "You were lucky I told you as much as I did. Kaitou KID is on the Most Wanted lists of fourteen different countries, so the UN and the United States of America are sending us to help Japan capture him. But this is as far as you will go. No more information can be sent to your department." He stepped over to the door, and walked out of the room, the guards on either side of the door stumbling to a nervous salute as he disappeared from view.

Nakamori looked over at Hakuba, who nodded, and winked. "That may be, Commander," he said in English, glancing over at the door, "but be warned that I will find out the rest by my natural gifts of observation and inference."

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"I can't believe it," Nakamori said as he entered his house, rubbing his forehead.

Aoko looked up from her schoolbooks. "What is it, otou-san?" she asked, standing up. She grabbed his face. "You don't look well..."

Nakamori shook her hand off. "I just swallowed my coffee the wrong way. I-It's nothing."

The eighteen-year-old girl raised an eyebrow, but shook her head and walked off to the kitchen. Her father seated himself at the table in the dining room, crossing his arms and concentrating on what seemed to be an interesting spot on the table.

It had certainly been an incredible day for him, not to mention the rest of the last fortnight. The loss of radio signals just off the coast of the south-east of the country; the paparazzi storm after discovering the mess; Kaitou KID's pair of heist notes to the police and to Hakuba, Hakuba's note warning him of the dangers of what he was doing; having to contact a commander of a foreign military; and now discovering that the 'Shizuoka triangle', as it was so nicknamed, was actually the gateway to an alien planet with intelligent life-!

He groaned.

"I heard that," Aoko said, walking back into the room with a tray holding two steaming cups. She placed one in front of the man. "It's green tea," she explained. "It should help."

Nakamori eyed it wearily. Then he picked it up and took a single sip. Aoko watched him with bated breath.

He put down the cup and, to her great relief, he smiled. "Thank you very much, Aoko-kun," he said. "You don't know how much I needed that."

Aoko nodded. "It's KID's heist tomorrow night, isn't it?" she said. "Hakuba was called out of class this morning – or, more accurately, he walked out on his own accord. If you've got a headache on the same day, then I doubt it could be anything other than that."

Nakamori stifled a mad chuckle. "Oh, it's a bit bigger than KID this time... the idiot's walking straight into it, as well."

"Otou-san!" Aoko exclaimed. "I may not like KID very much, but I do that he knows what he's doing!"

"That's the horrifying part this time," Nakamori replied. "KID knows more about what he's doing and where he's going than the police do at the moment. We had to call in the foreign military today to find out exactly what he was doing. It turns out he hacked into their computers to get information for his heist and came out of it with a ton of confidential information under his belt. They only offered the basic information we needed before walking out." He took another drink from his cup. "It was probably for the best; what he told us was enough to get our heads spinning, me and Hakuba."

"What was it, a global political conspiracy or something?" the girl joking, putting her own cup to her lips. "Kaitou KID's going to steal a foreign document that proves that the royalty of some European country is actually made up of tiny nano-bots. Or maybe he's going to fly off into a magic portal and steal from some aliens!" She smirked, tipping the cup back, but stopped when she spotted the now paralysed Nakamori Ginzo across from her. "...Otou-san? Are you okay?"

He regained consciousness and quickly took another a drink. "Yes, yes..."

Aoko raised an eyebrow, but continued to drink.

A few minutes of silence passed in which Nakamori had time to consider things. Aoko was right – KID often knew exactly what he was doing, even when all his plans went to pot. It was one of the things that were so strange about the man. But still... he was really running into a mess this time. Hopefully, if this heist screwed up, KID would have a back-up plan to help him escape. He had certainly done so when the snipers first appeared at his heists. Nakamori remembered them. Black-clothed, silent men who took shots at the thief, shots that were expertly dodged from what seemed to be a lifetime of experience, and then fled as fast as lightning, before the police could even find them. Their faces were never caught on any security cameras. If Nakamori didn't know any better, he'd say they were the fastest things alive.

The odd thing about Nakamori's opinion was that he didn't know any better, and yet he still realised that they weren't the fastest creatures in the universe. They were only men, after all, and one day the Task Force would be able to apprehend these people as well as Kaitou KID, and see just how far this vendetta reached. After all, there had to be plenty of people who would want KID dead, even despite the fact that he never harmed anybody, and always returned what he took. Kaitou KID was like Marmite. Some people just didn't want it around.

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Ai walked downstairs, flicking on the light. Conan still lay upon the sofa, fast asleep. One of the books from the Kudou house next door lay upon his lap.

Sighing, she held her dressing gown closer to herself as she walked over to him, feeling his forehead once more. He wasn't flushed, although...

He stirred under her touch. "Nii-chan..."

She flinched.

"...find anything... you do better?" The boy snuggled into the cushions, completely unaware how he muttered in his sleep. Ai probably would have left him alone, however, if not for the fact that straight after asking a question to whatever fictional older brother lay in his imagination, _he answered it himself_.

"No... nothing..."

The girl paused, and then walked back upstairs.

* * *

A/N: This chapter's actually a page and a half longer than intended. Enjoy it while it lasts, peeps; the next chapter will likely be the normal length. XD

Hmmm? He's not what you think... And it looks like the shark-tank arrived, as well as the ramp. Let's make the jump willingly... (Those sound like lyrics. It would be a good song.)


	5. Pondering Relationships

The night came and went, and Kuroba Kaito found himself gulping down his breakfast the next morning. All was practically calm in the world.

His mother took his plate about two minutes after she'd given it to him. "My, somebody's hungry!" she said. "Is there something special happening at school?"

Kaito shook his head, face buried in the mouth of his glass of orange juice. Seconds later it had disappeared down his throat. He gasped for breath, thumping his chest lightly with his fist lest he end up purging himself all over the table. "Nope, there isn't," he replied happily. "I'm just hungry. A kid can be hungry, can't he?" He glanced over his now empty glass. "..._And_ thirsty. And now I should be fine for the day!" He sprung up from his seat, cup disappearing from the table and reappearing in the wash basin with a little pink burst, and hurried out of the door.

The woman smirked, before holding up the abandoned gakuran jacket. Within moments Kaito had legged it back into the house, slipped on the dark article of clothing, muttered his bashful gratitude and proceeded to flee once more. He would have done so if not for the hand on his shoulder.

"Remember, Kaito-kun, I'm going out to a friend's at twelve, and I might not be back until _very_ late," she said. "I don't want you staying up too late, alright?" She winked at him; Kaito raised an eyebrow suspiciously before continuing his trek out into the great unknown.

As soon as he was outside of the building and onto public property, he reached into his schoolbag, stopping besides the nearest telephone pole. He leaned back on the thick wood, catching his breath. There were only two reasons that Hakuba would have given Aoko a message yesterday, although the means of delivery still startled him. Hakuba was onto him like a hound on a scent, like a lid on a teapot, like a... okay, he was out of similes. But the ainoko was a smart one, he had to admit, and realised that if he told Aoko who Kaito was he was likely to get laughed at. That scratched out one theory of having his secret revealed to his best friend, leaving one other theory left. Kaito's message – sorry, _KID_'s message – was bound to have put Hakuba on the edge of his seat. KID didn't warn anybody of danger. So, if Hakuba was telling Aoko anything, it would be to keep an eye on him.

And, if Hakuba had told Aoko to keep an eye on him, that meant Kaito leaving his house early so that she didn't suddenly latch onto him until school at least. As for the trouble of dealing with her after school, he'd have to think about that one. Maybe, if he disguised himself as his mother and walked out of the house...

Hang on; his mother was going to be out tonight, wasn't she? Goddamn it all. He'd just have to escape her after rescuing his costume and props from the house and pop onto the shinkansen straight after school. It only took two hours tops heading to Shimoda from Tokyo main station via Ito Station, and it couldn't be more that another hour to get to the Matsuzaki Spa by bus, so he'd have to figure out what to do for the whole of the afternoon.

He spotted Aoko's silhouette in the ground floor window, and darted off around the corner before she'd even reached her front door, having made his decision. If he was going to have to deal with her at school, there was only one option.

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Conan had been forced by Ai to stay at their instead of going to school that morning (that he was still ill and needed rest was the phrasing that she had used). Calls had been made to the Mouri Detective Agency to confirm that this was indeed possible – it was – and Ran popped over that morning to deliver some of her famous porridge. The miniature detective sat on the couch, listening to her.

"Ai-chan didn't tell me exactly," she said after a few minutes of ranting mostly to herself. "You've been falling asleep a lot, but... is there anything else that's wrong?" she asked.

Conan took a quick look over himself. "I don't know," he replied. "Ran...-nee-chan?"

The girl looked down at him. Mouri Ran was possibly the most beautiful girl Conan had ever known in his eighteen years of life, and during the last few years he had gotten to know her much better than before. She was tall, naturally pale skinned like a geisha, with a strong body and a shapely figure. Her long black hair was waist length and her eyes sparkled with the gleam of a thousand sapphires. Before the big incident she had been many things to him: a cute best friend, a first crush, an imposing enemy force and, the one he was not proud of, an obstacle. Now she had to play just one role, the role of a caring older sister.

"What is it?" she asked.

He nervously wound his small thin fingers together. "Eto... Do you still like Shin'ichi-nii-san?"

Ran jumped at the odd question, but her startled look quickly turned into one of... it was hard to explain, but Conan had observed all facets of her relationship with Shin'ichi for two years. First there was how annoying she found him, then how handsome, then how weak, then how stupid, then how independent, then how pathetic and so on. For the boy who had watched for so long without much interference, it only took him two seconds to realise that maybe Ran was thinking of all of these at the same time and thoroughly confused herself at how she sound look and sound.

"I do," she replied. "But he's starting to scare me. He hangs up quicker; he always tells me less and less about what he's doing; any time he shows up he runs. I wish he'd just stick around for a while, so we can talk, and hopefully he'll explain to me just where he keeps going..." She raised a finger to her eye to wipe away a few gathering tears.

Conan bowed his head, and then looked up again. "Ran-nee-chan, what if I... _be_ Shin'ichi-nii-san for you?"

Ran smiled meekly. "Thank you for the offer, Conan-kun, but I have to decline. I can't force you to be who you're not."

_Who you're not._

And he ate a spoonful of porridge.

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When Aoko got to school that morning, she had expected to meet Kaito somewhere along the way. That was her plan, after all: stick to Kaito no matter what happened, even if he went into the boy's toilet (in which case she'd stand outside the cubicle waiting for him). However, there had been a distinct lack of Kaito on her school route. Quite odd considering that they lived next door to each other, correct? She came up with the idea that maybe Kaito was already at school for some reason or other, and so hoisted her satchel higher onto her shoulder, walking on.

Well, it became so much more mysterious when she stepped into the classroom and discovered to her own personal horror that not one, but two, seats were empty, namely those of Hakuba and Kaito. Hakuba, she understood, as her father had popped out before breakfast that morning to get the Shizuoka prefectural metropolitan police on the line; that was all to do with Kaitou KID's heist. Kaito, she didn't, as he had nothing more important to do than his education. She had a feeling nagging in the back of her head that both of these disappearances were related to the Shizuoka anomaly. It was a theory that was proved when her best friend, a brunette named Momoi Keiko, walked over with a newspaper in her arms.

She nodded over to Kaito's seat. "Would you know what happened to those two?" she asked.

Aoko sighed. "Hakuba-kun's away for tonight's Kaitou KID heist, and I don't know where Kaito-kun is."

Keiko moaned. "Oh, damn it!" she said. "I was going to show off to Kaito-kun that found out where he hides those newspapers of his!" She threw down the paper. "And then I was going to grill Hakuba-kun to figure out how he gets the newspapers the day before!"

"Day before?" Aoko's head snapped up and she scanned the newspaper's headlines. "This is this morning's. But how did he get this(?)... Where did you find this, anyway?"

"I found it in his desk," the other girl explained, pointing at the vacated seat and scratching her head. "Why?"

However, her words were lost upon the black-haired girl as she scrambled through the desk. A number of things flew past her head, everything from an old hat to a two kilogram weight covered in Sharpie coloured pen ink. And come to think about it, the desk did seem a little deeper than usual... she knelt down and softly kicked what should have been air underneath the desk.

Her foot collided with something. The legs of the chair appeared to shake. But the top part mysteriously stayed still.

Smirking, she removed the many-faceted trick mirrors from the desk to reveal its true depth – right down to the floor. "He's been hiding everything in here the whole time," she muttered, ignoring the expressions of the rest of the class, and then suddenly dived headfirst into the desk again. After some time, she forced herself out, a grim look on her face.

There were no other newspapers in the desk, but there had been something alarming: a panel where the floor of the classroom should have been. Which lifted to reveal a tunnel leading underneath the building.

She growled. "I'm going to find anata and destroy anata if it's the last thing I ever do..."

Just then, the teacher walked into the room and regarded the classroom or, to be more specific, the giant desk in the room. "What on earth is that?" she asked. "And why is it where Kuroba-kun's desk should be?"

"It _is_ Kaito-kun's desk," Aoko replied. "This has been his desk for over two years... which means that for two years he's had an escape route hidden in the school. But why would he need an escape route from school?" It wasn't as if he would be able to jump in at any point at time with Hakuba sitting behind him. Hakuba, who always kept a trained eye on Kaito no matter what he did... wait, why on earth did Hakuba watch Kaito so much?

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Peering out of his nice dark space in the bushes of his back garden, Kaito sighed. He hadn't expected to get past Aoko so quickly and easily.

He poked his head over the top, relieved, to meet a familiar face.

"I said 'twelve', Kaito-kun," his mother said. "Not 'ten'."

Kaito poked his head down again, and then flew back up. "Mom, how the heck did you know I was in here?" he asked, removing leaves from his head. Damn vines were choking the garden again.

"I know all of your little hiding places," she said, kneeling down to pick up some more school shirts from the basket. "I live with you, remember?" She took a pair of clothespins out from the small plastic bin on her other side. "Your father liked to hide in there too when he thought he was being smart. You take right after him."

Kaito raised an eyebrow. "Tou-san hid in here?"

"Yes," she repeated. "He liked to surprise me with flowers from inside my bushes. I learned after the first few times."

"Oh."

"And don't worry, Kaito-kun, once I go out, you're free to go to Shizuoka," she added, ducking down once more. "I know I can't hold you back when you're determined."

Kaito blinked. "Determined to do what?"

His mother laughed, "Oh, never mind. You can still go, though – on the condition that you call school to tell them you're sick, bring in the washing and do the dishes. Is that alright?"

The teenage boy watched her, thoroughly stumped. His mother had never been one for breaking rules, had always made sure he went to school on time, didn't like him going off to strange places on his own (especially when it came to trips across Tokyo)... and now was allowing to do all of those things? Granted, she was making him a deal in exchange for a spot of housework, but this was extremely out of character for her. Blinking, he regarded her back as she moved away into the house again.

Just how much did actually she know about her son's relation to Kaitou KID?

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Hakuba adjusted the lenses on the binoculars he would be using tonight, peering out of the window. "I'm sorry to make you drive all this way Baaya-san. I should have saved you the trouble and used the trains," he said, looking out at the edges of the city.

"Nonsense," she replied. "It's my job after all. If I didn't do this for you I'd be out of work."

He leaned back into the leather seats. It was certain he would bump into Kuroba at least once during all of this. He'd gone against the warning and set out for the Suruga Bay, right into the danger zone. There'd be snipers flitting about on fishing boats, regular dark presences at any KID heist, and the waters of the Bay themselves weren't entirely safe, not to mention the giant spacial anomaly that was going to be above his head. And the other would know that he would go despite all of that. Of course Kuroba would want to apprehend him at some point during the heist and give him a stern talking-to or whatever it was KID did to people who went against his word.

Well, he didn't kill them. Nobody got hurt except for KID. That was the promise.

And Hakuba had just broken it by letting his curiosity lead him.

Kuroba clearly realised that Hakuba knew ('heavily suspected' was also an acceptable term) he was KID. He'd still given him the note. He didn't want him there. And according to the books of Arthur Conan Doyle, there could only be one reason behind everything, no matter how stupid it seemed, when eliminating the others. Kaitou KID didn't want Hakuba there because it was apparently a given that he'd get aimed at and killed.

Wow. Kaitou KID caring for an insignificant detective... Amazing. He'd do best to watch out before the Fan Club found out about this. It was likely they would, considering that one of their school colleagues ran the club's Ekoda High School branch. And then – well, he didn't want to picture it. They could save their perverted fantasies for the minds, thank you very much.

"Baaya-san, is it possible that a criminal can look out for a detective?" he asked.

"I suppose it could be," Baaya answered. "After all, in this day and age, anything is possible if you can find enough reasoning for it."

"Ah. I'm having trouble with Kaitou KID," the teenage detective admitted, running his hand through his fringe. "I don't understand why he sent me a warning. His heists have always been dangerous, with plenty of gun-fire and sometimes even... _explosive_ results. He has never asked me to stay away once. I may not know as much as he does in this case, but neither do his assassins. He also has the ideal method of travel towards the anomaly while I'll be forced into a tug-boat waiting for him to appear alongside the police's official ships. He literally holds all the cards this time. Normally, this would be the time for him to start 'rubbing it in my face', yet he took the time to ask me to step aside."

"Maybe it's his intent to preserve his enemy?" his servant suggested.

"Kaitou KID is a showman. If anything, he's more likely to be preserving his audience," Hakuba groaned. He stuffed his hand unceremoniously into the door pocket and pulled out another piece of surveillance equipment: a miniature camera. "A magician can't perform if there is no-one to perform for, after all... Plus, KID might be a pompous git, but he is intelligent. There's something specific that he's targeting and if those snipers, the police and the detectives are going to stop him, then it will strike him that the best course of action would be to eliminate those threats.

"Of course," he added, "Kaitou KID _does_ act either completely spontaneously or on plans that were drawn for every possibility."

"That would mean that either he planned for you to come," Baaya said, "or that he will somehow work around you when the time comes."

"Of course he would have worked out that I would be present, at least," Hakuba muttered. "That was what I was just thinking about."

Baaya nodded, peering into the windshield mirror to look at her charge. He was sprawled across the back, leaning on the armrest in the centre of the two seats. The binoculars had been dumped onto the opposite seat; he was currently toying with the camera while he rested his head on his free hand. For any other teenager, this might have been a regular stance in the car, but for Hakuba this was a new behaviour brought on by worrying over Kaitou KID's note. Baaya had to agree that it was something to worry about, but she reckoned that KID wanted to protect those he wanted to impress the most.

And so she voiced this concern a few moments later. "What if KID's intent _is_ to keep his favourite audience, then?"

"I..." Hakuba closed his eyes. "Your theory is that KID would protect his critics. That's not an impossibility judging from his character, as he would want the last laugh, but I guess I have reasoned differently."

"What is it that you believe, then, bocchama?"

"That whatever he plans to do tonight, KID was hoping that I would not come because he has predicted crossfire. Invariably, if I get caught in that crossfire..." He peered out of the window at the stunning late morning sky.

"...Then it destroys everything – whatever that may be – that he's working for."

* * *

A/N: I did a lot of research as to the time it takes to get to the Suruga Bay. I eventually found the way to the Matsuzaki Spa. Hakuba will arrive in a different town on the peninsula, but Kaito's closer to the anomaly's actual position.


	6. The Crossing Begins

Nakamori hadn't been pleased when he discovered that Hakuba had arrived at the docks just before the police cars did. The boy held a lot of respect for Kaitou KID despite everything the phantom thief had done to him over the past two-and-a-half years, so he would – no, should – have taken heed and not appeared. KID probably had a plan ready.

What if he didn't? Then he hadn't factored for Hakuba and the presence of said detective would screw with his plans. What if Hakuba got in the way? Then those black shadows would get a chance to fire which KID's original plan had ensured wouldn't appear. Would it result in the death of either one of them?

Or would it be both who fell?

The grown man shivered despite his best attempts not to. Nakamori made up a lot of the Task Force's energy, and that energy was exerted whenever Kaitou KID left for them difficult clues. Right now, he was leading them into the abyss, possibly literally if the anomaly was too low. Who had a single idea even close to just how much that drained away at you... Nakamori dedicated much of his time to the criminal; that meant spending a lot of time at work. He knew every member of his task force. To lose anybody there would be devastating. To lose Hakuba, who hadn't even had a taste of romance in his eighteen years, would be worse.

Hakuba closed the door of his car. "Nakamori-san, did you check any of your officers?" he asked, oblivious to the Inspector's current train of thought. "There's the slight possibility that they could be KID in disguise."

Nakamori snapped out of it and gestured to his own driver, whose face was covered in red sore spots. His first victim. "We also have the local police of every town within the Suruga Bay checking everyone near their individual harbours. But it's a big area to search, and a lot of people to go through."

"Agreed," Hakuba replied, walking off.

"Where are you going?" Nakamori called after him.

"To the beachfront," the teenager replied, waving his binoculars above his head. "To see if I can find this anomaly by sight. We'll need to be at the closest point to the anomaly to be able to catch KID before he even dares going in."

The closest point to the danger zone... this would turn out to be a long night.

MKMKMKMKMK

Meanwhile, Hakuba himself was on edge. The long time travelling in the car hadn't done much to dull his tension. Kaitou KID needed him out of the way tonight. And no way in heaven, hell or purgatory was he going to comply. He was his own man. He chose where to go on his own, and if it meant going against the wants of a phantom thief, then so be it.

Sighing, he raised his binoculars. There appeared to be nothing odd- ah! There it was; a strange flicker against a white cloud. It looked just like a small insect...

Suddenly, his vision went purple. Hakuba panicked, pulling down the binoculars as fast as possible.

The anomaly had looked like nothing more than a speck on one of the lenses. But as soon as he had looked directly at it, suddenly the entire world was washed into various shades of colour, the area around the actual anomaly cycling through the entire rainbow. In total shock, he put the binoculars into his bag and concentrated on it. Again, everything faded in bright colour. The grasses around him became a bright speckled green, the ocean shone deep blue, the paths were now a perfect yellow... He turned around and everything became horrible and dull.

He never noticed how grey his planet actually was.

Thoroughly confused, he walked back over to Nakamori. "It's only a few miles over to the east," he told him. "You'll know it when you see it."

"Are you sure?" Nakamori asked back. Hakuba grinned.

"As sure as this titanium sky."

Nakamori looked at him oddly. _That's funny_, he wondered, _the sky's particularly blue today._

MKMKMKMKMK

A few hours later, near the Matsuzaki Spa, a strange old man dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans and carrying a cane around stepped off a bus. He lifted a mobile phone to his ear, walking off in what appeared to be no particular direction but was actually west towards the buildings.

"Pardon," he said in a voice much too young for his body, albeit croaking and rough, "I wasn't able to come to school today. I had a very bad cold this morning and was unable to talk until just now. Yes? I don't know if I'll be totally alright tomorrow either. I think I caught the flu or something. Yes, I'll be waiting to find out. If it's alright, I'll come in. Alright. Bye."

Kaito ended the call with a sigh. "The things I have to do to keep my mother happy," he whined, slipping it back into his pocket. He walked along the path for a while, keeping his eyes open for a secluded spot, and then ducked behind the nearest man-sized bush available.

Some startled American tourists ogled as a teenage boy of around five-foot-eight emerged from the bush, spitting out leaves and muttering about that happening a lot lately.

Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he headed up towards the spa.

MKMKMKMKMK

Time passed quickly when one paid it the least attention. For the hours until the heist, Hakuba had whipped out an English copy of _The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes_ and settled himself on a chair on the deck of the police boat, flicking through the pages as if they only had three words on each (he hadn't had the chance to get onto a tug-boat like he'd described earlier; Nakamori had insisted that he keep an eye on him). The officers were talking over it, eating and doing what they generally did when Kaitou KID was yet to appear. Nakamori had contented himself with the checking of every single member of the Task Force; soon it was a sea of red faces from where the Inspector had pulled at their skin. Hakuba was not impressed when the man had attacked him.

Those who saw him with a large lump on the top of his head later were unprotected from a case of the giggles. That is, until he threatened them each with a suspension. _Then_, of course, they shut up.

Hakuba looked up from his book. The anomaly was now right above them, and that meant that looking up was often very painful for the eyes. He shielded his own as he inspected the sky. A little while ago it had glowed bright orange with the setting sun as a circle of yellow and white. Now it was a burning lilac. The stars were bright white.

He smiled, and looked down at the coastline to the east, as the colours faded away in various shades of grey and indigo. The place had looked very sweet during the daytime, especially the Spa some distance away. He knew he'd have to visit it someday in the future. Even obsessive-compulsive detectives like him needed a rest every now and then. He lifted up his binoculars for the second time and spied it through them.

He stared, mouth falling open. Was that-!?

"K-KID!?" he yelled, causing alarm amongst the others nearest to him. The kite-like shadow had just appeared against the sky and was now cruising towards the anomaly above their heads.

Nakamori burst out of the inner room. "It's not even midnight yet!" he exclaimed.

"I know that!" Hakuba replied. "Somebody get on the roof and try to flag him down before he blinds himself!"

Nakamori gave Hakuba a pointed stare as the usually cool-headed detective suffered a very hot-headed moment and broke into a run along the deck. He stretched his arm out in surprise, running after the boy and whatever mad danger he was headed directly towards.

"Hakuba, you can't be serious! Get back here!" he yelled. "KID doesn't want you here!"

Hakuba stopped and turned to face the Inspector in the midst of the current rush of officers trying to find a place in which they'd collectively have a good chance of pulling the thief down. His brown eyes blazed with fire brighter than the sun through the anomaly's rays. "Listen, if either of us is to catch Kaitou KID, then KID has to be alive as well for us to catch him!" he argued. "Would you rather have a dead thief on your hands or one alive to tell you why he steals?" He wheeled around and grabbed his miniature camera from his pocket.

Nakamori swore under his breath. "Did you even read his warning?" Yes, Hakuba had; that was how Nakamori knew it was a warning in the first place. But it seemed the ainoko wasn't listening to reason any more.

The blond hoisted himself up onto the roof, peeling the adhesive from the end of it. "Of course, Nakamori-san," he said, his voice more subdued this time. "That's why I'm giving him this. So we can keep track of him and make sure he doesn't kill himself." Sighing exasperatedly, he started waving his arms around like a lunatic. "_KID_! _GET DOWN HERE THIS SECOND_!"

And, a few feet away from him, a pair of white loafers touched down in front of him. The mysterious KID tipped his hat, resplendent in his white suit and furling cape.

"Tantei-san, what are you doing here?" he asked, the smirk hiding everything else behind it better than the monocle with the dangling blue pendant. "I thought I told the fox to burrow back to safety. Do you want Boggis, Bunce and Bean to take your tail?"

"Do I look like a person who'd hide when you're running into danger?" Hakuba replied, ignoring the Dahl reference. "KID, at the least, take this." He threw the camera to the thief, who caught it one-handed and looked it over.

The monocle glinted in madness. "So you're just a curious man at heart too, aren't you? Did you get that commander on the line? I'd imagine so." He closed his eyes. "The farmers will be taking aim when I fly out. Make sure you stay in your hole, tantei-san, when that happens, and let these trees I see take over then."

Hakuba glanced from the rip to the KID and back again. "How will you be getting up there?" he asked. "You're completely unsuspended and there's no way I can see you managing it."

Kaitou KID bowed. "I'm a magician first," he said, snapping his fingers. As if by magic, his feet lifted from the ground and he rose from the top of the boat. "And a sneak-thief second." He revealed the grapnel gun from behind his back. He must have shot it while flying when he saw Hakuba waving his arms. It seemed that anomalies had a secured edge of some kind. "Of course, sometimes that side likes to come out first," he replied, to which from his pocket he revealed the white handkerchief for the second heist in a row.

"KID..." Hakuba rubbed his forehead. "You'll never get tired of that, will you?"

The thief winked. "Of course not. It keeps you on your toes."

The wire on this side of the anomaly was coming to an end, so KID rolled over and stared directly into the rip.

MKMKMKMKMK

As soon as he slipped through and stood up on the two-foot-wide ledge halfway between Shizuoka and the other world that his grappling hook had stuck itself on, Kaito checked the camera that Hakuba had tossed him. To tell the truth, he had no idea why the detective had given him this, although he had a niggling suspicion that it was to do with the police. Yes, maybe Hakuba had given him it to see into all his tricks.

Smirking, and remembering that the cameras still recorded even on the other side, he held it up do his face. "Okay, recording. Houston, do you copy?" he muttered, copying a voice that had played through many an American home television speaker nearly forty years ago. The light reflecting from the item with bright white and the little flashing red LED for recording wasn't doing his exposed left eye much justice either - the lens in his monocle was a react-to-light design and so helped him for the most part - but he didn't care right now.

He paused and then, resigning himself to the fact that the camera would not transmit messages back to him, he stuffed the item in his pocket and adjusted his hang-glider, which snapped into place again, before diving from the ledge and letting the inter-dimensional updraft carry him through the other end of the tunnel.

That was odd... Did inter-dimensional tunnels always end in green?

He glanced back over his shoulder to see that the hole in time and space that he had just traversed through took form in this world of a familiar-looking green pipe with a thick end. Mental images of plumbers spitting fireballs at giant dragon turtles that in no way resembled his beloved Gomera flew through his head, but he shook them off and continued flying through the sky. Although, he didn't want to have ended up in the wrong world by accident.

He was currently several miles above the shimmering surface of a deep and beautiful blue ocean that practically shone with beauty (although the exaggerated light effect wasn't happening now). He reckoned from the size of the waves that he had come out higher from the water than he had been flying through it originally. So passages to alternate dimensions never had a particular height in mind when forming, did they? Laughing at his new world he chanced a dive towards the water and skimmed the surface, dragging his foot along. Then, when pulling up – he actually pulled up back into the sky. He nearly dropped his monocle when he realised that he hadn't fallen into the water as he thought he would.

Maybe this other world had a different set of physics? It would explain the giant pipe, at least.

Along the western horizon he saw a distant brown coast around twenty miles away. Along the side of it, some miles out and several miles _up_ was a gigantic chunk of said coast that had somehow ripped away from the line and now floated in the sky at aeroplane height. Kaito eyed it in wonder. The floating land sported a tall, thrusting mountain surrounded by green jungle, regular forest ground and old-looking purple stone buildings. Waterfalls cascaded down the side from invisible sources, trickling down into the sea.

The odd geography was interesting, that was true, but he was much more interested in the tiny, almost undetectable green glow that he saw coming from an area near the top of the island. He changed direction and swooped towards it, ignoring the wind.

He chuckled in the back of his head. When they'd called it an Angel Island, he hadn't thought it was true. He looked underneath and watched for several minutes the undulating waves until land appeared under his feet. Then he turned his attention to the land. A forest approached him quite soon after reaching his destination, so he turned upwards again and directed himself towards the glow, not noticing how the grass inside the forest had turned into a thin green track with giant rocky loops growing inside of it. He also barely noticed the robotic wasp that captured him on camera and began to follow him.

Forest gave way to brown, water-stained rocks that plunged upward. The stonework seemed even, and almost manmade, but he decided not to ask about the harlequin pattern formed by the stains. Maybe it was just how it worked over here.

Finally, he came to the top of the ledge from which the glow had greeted him, and touched down onto the soft and luscious grass, deconstructing the hang-glider. Before him stood the remains of a giant white temple of a very Greek design (or what seemed). A tall stone stairway led up through a series of circular platforms, finishing at the top. These platforms were surrounded by old broken pillars, although the pillars at the very top were nearly undamaged and holding up little coloured lights... about the side of a large man's fist. It was from the top that the mysterious glow presented itself. He sighed, and decided to walk.

He tested the steps, just to be sure. The stone was still strong despite the obvious weathering. Now more confident, he hiked up the stairs, wondering to himself how those animals had built a place like this long ago. Then again, if they spoke English then it was very possible that they could imitate architectural styles that they'd never seen before.

He may have looked rather calm and adjusted outside, but several hundred questions were shooting off in Kaito's head, all of them without answers. How did the island float on its own accord, for one thing? How did it have so many naturally occurring isolated biomes, for another? Now Kaito did listen in some lessons, and those lessons did include his biology and physics classes, and the island from one look had been betraying all laws of the two. Not to mention that the idea of an alternate world that had also produced grass identical to the grass on Earth was a bit ridiculous at well. In fact, so ridiculous that a certain detective might want to take a look himself and decide if this wasn't just some huge mass hallucination.

He pulled out the camera from his pocket again, and aimed it at his surroundings. "Sorry about the pocket, but tantei-san, if you're getting any of this, you can drop your jaw. _This_ is what another universe looks like." He continued up, and finally after a few minutes reached the top.

The first thing that caught his eye was the ring of seven pillars that he had seen from lower down. Upon each of them was a fist-sized stone that was glowing from the inside. Each one was a different colour of the rainbow. Ignoring the man-sized emerald in the centre from which the bright green light issued, he concentrated on a single gem on the temple. One that glowed bright red in the night.

The bushes at the edge of the 'clearing' shuddered, and he looked behind him. A strange creature, a few inches three foot tall, emerged from the foliage. It was red-furred with a large head that had to be too heavy for its body; a series of strange tumour-like growths, all of similar length and thickness, hung down from its crown as what looked like rather abstract dreadlocks. Its eyes took up most of its face (and skull), and were very close together with a brownish-tan muzzle underneath. The creature had a square torso and thick rope-like limbs, and it wore white gloves like boxing gloves on its hands, with two large spikes jutting out of the knuckles. It wore red-and-yellow striped trainers with a metal panel on the top of each shoe and green socks... cuffs. Kaito couldn't decide.

"Who are you?" the creature said in English. Kaito pointed at himself, trying to confirm the association with the word 'you' for a second. Hmm, male voice, deep baritone, a little rough-throated. Right, got that one memorised, and no Axel jokes.

"I sent a message to the police of my world," he replied after a moment's pause. "I come for a 'Kaosu' Emerald. They tried to stop me on their side and failed, so let me see this world's defences."

If it wasn't already obvious, Kuroba Kaito was shockingly fluent in English for a Japanese high school student. He'd been learning the language since he was about six years old, just before his father was killed. His mother taught him, having learned the language herself from a friend of hers who often travelled overseas for work (that lasted anywhere between a fortnight to three months; he'd heard her mention that that person needed to check on their child a little more in a telephone conversation). That was how he managed to work some of the jokes into his more cryptic heist notes for Nakamori. But the fact that Nakamori only spoke 'professional' English, the type that every policeman knew, was a language barrier between the two... until Hakuba ended up assisting the police, that is. Then KID used English more.

Now, you may analyse that or just wave your hand side to side and ignore it.

The creature banged its knuckles together. "It's not like I can trust you, then, is it?" it said, before charging roughly at him. Kaito dived to the side, causing it to stumble forward and plough into the ground in such a fashion that the dust kicked up nearly choked him from behind.

"You decide who you're going to trust by asking if they come for the Kaosu Emeralds?" he laughed nervously, his poker face hiding his total anxiety and the diminishing dust cloud revealing that red glowing gemstone in his hand. Those spikes looked sharp... "I admit that's a good measure, considering what I heard..." He looked over his shoulder to see whatever damage had occurred to ground behind him.

And that was when he noticed the flying robotic wasp. And behind that wasp he noticed the massive fleet of other wasps. The creature was staring them down, clearly annoyed by the presence of the mechanical insects.

A rush of grey towards him and a pair of round red lights close to his face.

And that was when Kaito blacked out.

* * *

A/N: KID's very good at English jokes. Good English explains how a) he wrote the heist note and warning, b) how he understood the video and c) how he managed to surf that group's webpage.


	7. Birds in Cages

EDIT: Made some changes due to some suggestions by WolfDaughter. However, the word 'jemmy' is the correct word; it means 'to force something open with a jemmy', which is a small crowbar. Hairpin makes a good switch at the moment.

* * *

The sound of ticking awoke the thief. Annoyed, he attempted to push himself up from the floor, trying to identify its source.

It was then that he discovered that he wasn't lying on a floor. He was bound to a wall by metallic bands around his upper arms. And his head was practically naked, no top hat, no monocle.

Of course, Kaito knew that as the KID he had plenty of psychotic fans out there. Hey, when you freefell for a living, dressed up like a white version of Tuxedo Kamen and turned jewellery into roses for the fun of it, that was the only kind of person you were ever going to get worshipping you. And worship these people did, until you did something that was not to their expectations. They were particularly vicious people if you didn't aim to please them every second of your performance. And let's not forget the police either, and the way they treated him when they saw him. Still, sticking to the subject, Kaito also knew that many people, fan or no, would do something completely stupid and illegal in order to get their hands on him. World-famous criminal and all that. The only person that had ever gone close to this far to get him, however, hadn't been a fan, hadn't captured KID, and definitely had not been nice about it.

Hence the panic that he was now feeling. That other person had only tied him up with rope to a post. This guy (whoever he was) had gone all out. He was just waiting for the laser slicing him up the middle and the guy in the spinning office chair stroking the fluffy cat to show up. Then this show would be complete.

He took deep breaths. Calm down, think back... now, what had happened? He'd just landed on a floating island, had a run-in with a red alien creature, grabbed an extremely powerful gemstone-

He panicked. Where the heck was the gemstone!?

He bit his bottom lip and looked around. The room was dark, so he couldn't see much due to the lack of light, but from what he could tell he was in a semicircular glass cell of some kind. The ground underneath his feet was a steel floor, very strong and most likely very well reinforced. Looking up he noticed some strange piece of machinery, like a headpiece, hovering above. Not hovering like the island, no; just most likely hanging from the ceiling by wires or something. He leaned his head back and hummed a tune to calm down.

He stayed like that for a good number of minutes. Then he remembered that there had been a camera in his pocket at some point. He vaguely wondered if it was still there (and for that matter, if it did actually record sound), before shaking his head.

"Are you there, tantei-san?" he muttered. God knew what would happen if the kidnapper overheard him. "I'm up now... a little freaked out. But I'll be fine. Just wait a while and then make sure you hide in your den. Wouldn't want the farmers coming after the wrong fox, would we?"

"Indeed we wouldn't," said a male voice in English, and Kaito's head snapped up. He could just catch the oddly-shaped silhouette in front of him. The person would only be a few inches taller than him, and they were most likely a lot older judging from tone, but other than that he had practically nothing except spindly legs and a round torso to tell him who it was. And that was a bit difficult, considering that he'd never thought that was a plausible shape for a human being.

"Who are you?" he asked, his proud mask hiding any fear he didn't want evident. "And would you kindly turn the lights on for me to see your face, jii-chan?"

"Why, certainly!"

The lights flickered on, and Kaito examined his surroundings better. He was in some kind of mechanics garage, although the monitors and keyboards made it look somewhat more like a laboratory. The floor outside of his glass prison cell looked like concrete and carpet in contrast to the world he had experienced after coming through the anomaly. The walls were painted metal, with hundreds of pipes and thick wires sticking out, several of these leading to his cell. The room looked dirty and dusty, and the machinery scattered across the floor cluttered things a bit. On one of the panels he could see seven slots, of which one was filled with the red stone that he had been holding before he had lost consciousness.

The man who stood before him was, to his honest surprise, a human being. But that seemed a bit of a stretch. He had a strange figure with long, stringy arms and legs, curving feet and an egg-like body with a round head set on top. From underneath a large pink nose there extended a bushy ginger moustache to rival the best. Covering the man's eyes were small sunglass-like spectacles, and on top of his head were a set of goggles. His costume consisted of a red zip-locked coat with four golden studs upon either side of said zip, white gloves, black leggings and a pair of the single coolest boots that Kaito had ever seen in his life.

The man studied the boy with some interest. "I have to admit, it's a bit strange seeing a human come onto that Angel Island without any kind of robot to help him. But what interests me more is the intent of your visit." He gestured to the Emerald in the panel. "While it's not hard to trick Knuckles into giving you the Chaos Emeralds, it's certainly odd for somebody to only go for one of them."

Kaito smirked. "What can I say, jii-chan? I only took one because I hardly have room in my pockets for any more at the moment."

"You're from the other side of the portal that opened up some time ago in the south sky, aren't you?" the man noted.

"Ahh, we have an intelligent person here," Kaito mused. "You're the reason that 'Nakkurusu' creature you mentioned wasn't surprised at my species, then, I suppose?"

The man nodded. "Of course, he's met plenty of humans before. This planet happens to play host to many human colonies, after all." He bowed. "I haven't introduced myself, have I? My name is Doctor Eggman. And what's the name of the rat in my cage?"

Kaito looked around. His hat and monocle sat on a table outside of his cell. And come to think of it, there wasn't a lot of weight in his pocket, either. "What happened to the camera in my pocket?" he asked.

"I took it and disabled it just in case it was still transmitting," said the doctor, tapping the table next to him. "The widely-available technology on your side is extremely undeveloped, despite the fact that I know better technology exists there. I may have to study your world further."

Something clicked. "How would you know that better technology exists in my world than that camera, 'Egguman-jii-chan'?" He paused for a breath second. "'Egguman'... Eggman. There."

The man burst out laughing. Kaito wished he could cover his ears to block out the substandard villainous laugh.

"Why, my dear boy, you're about to be subject to that it!" Eggman struck a few buttons on a nearby keyboard, and the headpiece dropped onto his head. Kaito could only wince as needles dug into his skull. There was also something scratching at the base of his head.

He froze.

The cable plunged itself into his spinal column.

And all this seemed dreadfully familiar. Think about it: kidnapped, bound, fitted to a creepy helmet... it was ringing bells, but he couldn't hear the melody properly. Like there was a note that was missing.

"What did you steal, then, 'Eggman-jii-chan'?" he asked, never screaming from the pain in the back of his neck, always with a smirk on his face.

"There was a little robotics laboratory that I discovered on the coastline of your land," narrated the strange doctor. "And what should I find inside that robotics laboratory but a device designed to upload a large amount of information data directly from the human brain into the memory banks, treating the mind as a computer." He tapped the edge of the keyboard proudly with his sausage-like fingers. "It was only a matter of removing the external robotics port, adjusting the programming and making a few tweaks here and there to suit this machine to my new plans."

Kaito mulled it over for a short while. "Removing the robotics port," he muttered (in his native tongue; after all, one didn't think in foreign languages), "and adjusting the programming of a machine that copies data." Copied data – left the original data behind. Now how did that sound familiar?

The robotics port. It was the missing piece of the puzzle. The memories were uploaded to a robot. It was _that_ machine. This strange egg person had pilfered from the abandoned laboratory of a crazy robotics professor who had kidnapped him off the street and created a robot in his likeness to go to his school, confess to Aoko and steal his life. Only, that guy hadn't bet on that robot having the memory of Kaitou KID. The artificial KID was forced to steal priceless gems as part of the mad professor's adapted grand plan to become rich.

Then the robot had gained the power of conscious thought. And it had all gone downhill from there. Kaito still grew sick from the memory of watching his own mirror image shooting himself in the head.

He bit his lip. Time to give up, he supposed. "I don't understand – what have you made the machine do?" he asked.

"You'll be finding out soon enough!" Eggman cackled, and pressed the big red button. Kaito closed his eyes in expectation.

The first that he felt of it was a slight jolt of electricity in his head as some other wires inside the helmet attached themselves to his scalp. Then there was the sensation he had been horrified to feel once before – the sense that some kind of snake had burrowed itself into his brain and was now slithering around inside his head. Except, there were three of them this time around. He closed his eyes, wincing as he felt them navigate directly into the centre, going straight after the core.

And there they stopped. He hesitated. What were they going to do to him now!?

The second sensation started. Now the snakes were taking bites into his core and then... pulling back. It was the only way he could describe it. It was an odd feeling, definitely, and hard to really understand unless you went through it yourself. And he hoped that nobody did; well, that nobody was kidnapped by a strange otherworldly madman, hooked up to a weird machine and having their memories stolen away.

But that core was still complete. It was just like before – obviously, Eggman's edit hadn't worked properly, and the machine was still just copying his memories.

He opened one eye a crack to watch Eggman; he was paying attention to a monitor beside him, not observing how he was doing. How unscientific of him. The data would stay in the computer's memory, but unless he had a camera on, he'd miss the more important reaction.

The Eggman turned a few dials. "Interesting..." he mumbled, striking some keys. "The data you previously had is fascinating. Full moon, eh?"

That did it. Now this maniac was finding out about Pandora! He didn't need another guy coming after that thing, not with the black coats already coming after him. Kaito was going to get out no matter what happened.

A piece of the wall blew out, smashing the glass and striking the edge of one of the metal cuffs holding him under the shoulders, taking it out of the wall.

"Hey, Eggman! What's your crazy scheme this time?"

He looked up. There was a strange shadow in the hole with an abnormally large head and thin limbs, a bit similar to that Knuckles creature but with different head tumours. The mad doctor wheeled around, shock etched onto his face as he quite clearly took his eyes away from his memory-stealing project to face the awkward alien intruder.

At once the man grabbed for a remote control on the table, knocking the monocle to the floor, while Kaito set to work. He tore his arm out of the binding and reached into the back of his shirt, drawing out a hairpin. It was just enough to jemmy the lock open after a few seconds. Then he set to work ripping the headpiece off. The three wires came loose in a fit of pain. And finally, the cable in his spinal column.

His vision went entirely white for a second.

Blood dripping from his head and neck, he stood up, brushed himself off... and then gaped. That little remote in the man's white-gloved hand (everybody here wore gloves; he felt so accepted!) had called forth a fifteen-foot-tall red-yellow-and-black humanoid machine to face the small mammal-like creature. If that other mad professor had been a genius at robotics, then what on Earth was this Eggman?

And – what was even creepier – the little guy was currently _winning_. A three-foot-tall alien versus a giant mecha... with rocket launchers, large heavy feet that could squash you in an instant and an automatic aiming function, _and it was winning_!

Blinking, Kaito put on his monocle and grabbed his hat, ripping some of the fabric from it to pad down the neck wound a bit. Thankfully no veins or arteries had been involved, so there was very little blood coming out, but still enough to slow him down. He then threw it down on the floor, but not before he had securely attached the spiny tracker onto the blue ribbon. If he ever needed it, he could always track it down with the earring telephone he had on the back of his tie. It seemed that Eggman had only checked his pockets. Truly a pathetic attempt at a body search, in Kaito's humble opinion.

Now, the heist... ah, over there! He flitted over to the console as quickly as possible, taking the red gem. Eggman seemed tied up in fighting the little guy.

The little guy, unfortunately, noticed him where his foe did not. "Hey, guy, what are you doing with that Chaos Emerald?" he yelled. Eggman looked at Kaito, who grinned anxiously, and pressed another button on his remote. Several odd-looking robots designed after their creator, what with their egg-shaped bodies, beady eyes and stumbling gait, emerged from small doors in the walls and surrounded him.

Kaito was a thief. He was not built for combat. Sure, he was sure that he could throw a decent punch and knew a bit of self-defence, but with his ahimsa pact he'd stopped himself from learning any real fighting styles. Which lead to a slight dilemma in how the hell he was going to get out of this one.

Luckily, the idiot who had ruined his sneak-thievery realised this. "Think of somewhere and yell, 'Chaos Control'!" he cried, flying at his own boss fight so quickly it was like a gust of wind.

"Nani!?" Kaito replied, jumping over the top of a robot as it charged him. His cape caught under its foot, however, and he was sent earthwards. He landed on the floor, the gem rolling out of his grasp and into a four-fingered, felt-gloved hand.

A purple alien with separate eyes, a pink nose and cowboy hat looked down at him. "Thanks, mate. I been lookin' for that," he said, winking.

Growling – he wasn't about to lose his prize now! – he pulled out his card gun and shot at the thing's hand. He dropped the Emerald, it tumbling back into Kaito's outstretched hand. Maybe that guy had an idea after all...

He concentrated on Ekoda – Aoko's house, the Blue Parrot, the police station, anywhere was good right now – and shouted at the top of his breath, "_Kaosu Control_!"

MKMKMKMKMK

Conan shot out of bed, grasping his heart in fright.

"Shi... Shin'ichi-nii-chan..." he muttered. Blinking, he looked around, then pushed himself up out from under the covers and walked over to the window, opening the curtains and scanning the night sky.

He crossed his arms and leaned on the ledge, closing his eyes. He sighed. What a bad dream...

"Are you alright, Shin'ichi-nii-chan?" he asked quietly.

_Yeah... I think so. What was that?_

"Kaitou KID's heist was tonight," Conan said, "and it was to do with the anomaly. Remember?"

MKMKMKMKMK

Hakuba was watching the anomaly carefully when, all of a sudden, the light glowed brightly. He put his arm up to shield his eyes, but it faded almost as quickly.

Nakamori 's breath hitched. "What the _fuck_ was that!?" he snarled, scanning around the edges of the thing.

"I think..." Hakuba reached up and grabbed something out of the air, holding it out in front of him. It was his camera, damaged, but with the recordings intact. "I think that was KID."

MKMKMKMKMK

"See?" He pointed at the white flash in the sky. "That's him coming out right now. KID's heist was inside the anomaly. Maybe it caused an energy spike of some kind?"

The shadow of the detective stood behind him, trailing from his feet along the floor and across the bed. _So you've worked out why we're like this, then, Conan-kun?_ He asked. _The energy from the anomaly must have been forcing the split. The problem is, what kind of energy creates a mental split between a secret identity and a cover story?_

"I don't want to know," Conan admitted, "but I'm talking to you while we're awake, and I'm the one using the vocal cords. I don't think the energy knows which of us is the made-up one."

_This is getting bad. No doubt about it_, Shin'ichi muttered to himself, _but this is getting bad._

MKMKMKMKMK

Kaito tumbled onto the plush carpet roughly, rolling over twice. He stopped, and lay on his face for several minutes. His mind was blank, all of his thinking power spent on willing himself home. He wondered if it had been like this for Dorothy in her first moments of waking up.

Maybe it was all a dream.

Then it struck him that maybe pushing himself up might allow him to look around and work out where he was. So he did.

He was in his bedroom.

What. The. Crap?

He collapsed for the second time.

* * *

A/N: Even if Kaito can speak perfect English, he's still a bit fiddly, isn't he?


	8. The Morning After

Ran worked happily in the kitchen that morning, cooking waffles. A recent burst of inspiration had come to her after watching some imported television last night, and she knew that Conan wasn't exactly averse to American-styled breakfasts anyway.

The small radio she had bought a few months ago sat on the kitchen counter. "_This morning the police returned from their stake-out point in the Suruga Bay after staying there for the Kaitou KID's heist last night. No official reports of the incident have been released, but the police are admitting that Kaitou KID did not leave the area. Boats and homes around the coastline are being checked for the famous thief's presence. Kaitou KID is a world-class criminal mind who recently returned some years ago after an eight-year-long absence from the press..._"

She turned down the volume as the female reporter went into KID's career. She'd heard it several times this week already. Listening to news of KID had been a common activity for the last few weeks, as influenced by Conan, who had taken an unusual interest in the thief. As in, he'd changed from a passing interest, in which he only smirked when the man was brought up in conversation and 'helped' her father decipher his tricks during any heists they were invited to, to a short-time obsession with him. The boy was always sat in Kogorou's chair when the evening news came on. The older man disliked that. Ôkino Youko was currently in a television drama afterwards, and the little boy was stealing his seat!

Although he always drifted off after the closing jingle...

She wondered for a brief second if KID had anything to do with Conan's recent bouts of narcolepsy, before returning to her job. Maybe he did. Maybe he didn't and it was just tiredness, but Ran had been making sure that Conan had been getting eight hours of sleep a night at least and a nap before going out with his friends. And still he ended up falling asleep in school... The day before yesterday it could have passed off as a cold, but last night he was completely fine. Completely fine... apart from the 'always falling asleep' part, of course.

A quiet shuffling behind her informed that Conan had woken up. "Ohayou, Conan-kun!" she said chirpily. "I'm making some waffles for you. Is that okay?"

The little boy nodded slowly. "Yes, Ran-nee-cha-" Suddenly, his mouth widened into the largest yawn that she'd ever heard from him. The boy stumbled back some steps onto his rear.

"Conan-kun!" Ran scooped him up from the floor and held him up. "Are you alright?"

"Yes," he said in a remarkably defensive fashion, although anybody who knew the boy would tell you that he often grew standoffish when hiding something. And, of course, the person who would tell you that first was Ran. Let us also not forget that Ran's motherly instincts had developed through caring for Conan.

"You were walking around last night, weren't you?" she accused, bringing him closer. "I heard you moving around some time after midnight."

The boy visibly gulped. "I had a bad dream last night, and I couldn't get back to sleep," he replied after some silence.

"Is that so?" Ran asked. A frown crossed her mouth, and she placed him on the floor. "I guess I can't blame you for that then." She turned back to the counter.

To be honest, it hadn't crossed her mind that Conan might be suffering from a long string of nightmares, in which case he couldn't exactly be blamed for the things that were worrying him. Still, nightmares were caused by, and often did feature, things worrying you in real life. If this concentration on everything Kaitou KID was getting into his head at night, then he could certainly kiss his news programs goodbye.

Conan knelt down on the floor. "Ran-nee-chan?" he mumbled. "About what we talked about yesterday morning..."

"?"

"You were right, I guess. I'm not Shin'ichi."

MKMKMKMKMK

Kaito stirred.

_What the crap..._ he growled mentally, forcing his head up and blinking wildly as his vision adjusted to the light. It felt like somebody had struck him with a ton of bricks. Right, that was the last Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster he was having...

"I'm going out now, Kaito-kun, if you're awake now!" said the friendly voice of his mother from downstairs.

His eyes widened.

His mother had seen him dressed as Kaitou KID...

Cursing under his breath, he pushed himself up and looked at the clock. Eight twenty. That was right, his mother worked today, didn't she? Just to pick up some money or such for dinner. It bugged him that she'd taken so much time off lately to look after him, but of course, she was his mother and she had to look after him. There was also money sent by his relatives, and Jii also gave their family some of the income from the Blue Parrot. Though, why couldn't he just get a job himself, he'd never know.

He winced as he suddenly recalled the events of last night. How he'd been kidnapped by a mad doctor, how that blue alien had beaten a giant mecha, how he'd ruined his lovely hat trying to patch up his wound. He reached back and felt his neck, clenching his teeth. His mother must have performed some top-notch first aid. Normal people probably wouldn't have survived a stab in the neck.

Of course, it was all thanks to that Emerald that he'd gotten back. If those magic words – so much like Akako's magic, but it didn't feel that way – had really done it... amazing, wasn't it just? That other world, that jewel-

Wait a second.

Jewel.

Dear God, heist, heist, where are you? On top of the cabinet. Bad. In full view of the window. Damn it, okaa-san, that's not where you put extremely valuable things your son might be killed for. He shoved himself up, found that he was now in his pyjamas and that his KID suit must have gone into the wash (he crossed his fingers and hoped that his mother had taken the reds out first. She was an attentive mother and the smartest homemaker he'd ever known, but even monkeys fell from trees), walked downstairs and prepared himself a cup of coffee.

What followed was a pretty healthy drinking session filled with nothing interesting. I could go into vigorous detail, but that'd be filler.

What I will go on to detail, however, is the very entertaining phone call to the school.

"...Hello? *sniff* It's Kuroba. I'm really sorry, but I'm not coming into school this morning either. *hack, cough* Yeah, this cold's really tight on my throat this morning. *sniff, sneeze, coughing fit* Sore throat, sniffles, the works... Yeah, I didn't know there was a cold bug going round either. Okay, okay... I'll call my doctor, I know. This still might clear up in a few days, anyway; I've felt this bad before. Uh-huh... Poor Hakuba-kun, I really didn't know about that. Uh-huh. Thanks. Goodbye."

He put down the phone, and then suddenly picked it back up again, scanning his phone book. Then, he dialled the number he thought he'd never dial in his life.

"_Yes?_" The clipped voice sent shivers down his spine. Hakuba was not a nice phone voice. "_This is Saguru; I'm a bit tired if you don't mind._"

"Oh," said Kaito, switching to his KID persona, "should I call back later when you're rested and ready, tantei-san?"

A long pause. "_I'm listening._"

"Did the farmers shoot at you last night, or did you hide in the den like I asked you to?" he asked, crossing his arms.

"_No need. I'm currently reviewing the video that you gave me._"

MKMKMKMKMK

And indeed, Hakuba was. He was curled up in the leather cushions, laptop resting on his thigh while he grabbed almost lazily at the toast sitting on the sofa's arm. Currently he had taken one headphone out to speak. "It's intriguing to say the least," he concluded, after rolling the film back to a certain moment and recording. "Is this really what you saw and heard on the other side?"

"_Indeed it is, but there's a point where he knocks out the tape. He might have also damaged the microphone, although I'm not sure. By any chance, was it, and can you find the part where I wake up?_"

"No, it wasn't, and I'm currently looking for the part you're talking about," the young man admitted. "You've recorded two hours of complete inactivity and what do you mean by 'h- oh, that's very explanatory..." The screen had just shown a moustached man as he knocked out the camera; Hakuba flicked forward, checking the timer on the bar below. "...There are two hours, thirteen minutes and eight-point-one-two seconds of inactivity. I'm listening now."

"_...Hit the pause button, please._" Hakuba complied. "_Nakamori-keibu mustn't see this tape. Neither should Stonewall-gunshou, nor anybody. Except, of course..._"

Hakuba stared at his telephone. "Of course, who?"

"_...No, sorry, it's not worth telling you. It could get you killed if you're not careful enough._" KID muttered something under his breath; however, the telephone wasn't the best machine to hear this through, and Hakuba strained to hear it. "_Anyway. Watch the tape. I'll come to you. You tell me what you think of it._"

"What is the heist you've stolen, anyway?" the snide ainoko asked, smirking. "Did you end up losing it?"

"_..._" The dial tone rang. Hakuba was left toying with the pitiably incorrect assumption that maybe the KID hadn't gotten his jewel after all.

MKMKMKMKMK

That day, Ms Kobayashi found Edogawa Conan in class, seated at his desk in the middle of the lesson, thankfully wide awake but putting on a very unusual frown at the question on the board. Conan was a very good student who excelled in most subjects. He was the kind that got every question correct without a second thought; hence why he often slept through the easier lessons. Ms Kobayashi felt rather proud to be teaching him, as if his intelligence were all her own work. Plus, it helped that Conan's high scores upped the average grade of the class and kept her in her position. So a Conan confused was not good for her job.

She walked over to him as the other students dutifully did the work on the board and knelt by his desk. "Are you alright, Edogawa-kun?" she asked.

He started in his seat, and turned to look at her. There seemed to be something wrong about his eyes but, whatever that was, it was hidden by his glasses.

"Ha-hai, I'm alright, Kobayashi-sensei," he said, turning his pencil over in his fingers.

"Are you having any trouble with the question?" she asked. Some of the students near Conan, Ai included, turned and looked over at the little confrontation.

Conan shook his head. "Of course not!" he exclaimed quickly, covering up his book. All eyes, minus those of the Shounen Tantei and Ai, removed themselves and were focused back on their own workbooks. Hey, it took a lot of concentration to write kanji in the correct order, and even more so to do mathematics at the exact same time. Learning one to ten in kanji was just as useful as learning Arabic numerals. "I'm just..."

"You're just..." The woman took the workbook from under his arm and scanned over it for a few seconds. "...trying to work, right?"

Conan grabbed at the air, a look of absolute concentration on his face. "Give it back."

"Only if you come outside for a second," Ms Kobayashi replied, winking. "I'll be there in a moment, okay?"

The little boy sighed, before getting out of his seat and heading towards the door, pencil-case in hand. She glanced at him as he left the room. He was bending forward a little more than usual, looking at his feet as he walked, and his gait had become unusually stumbling for him. It wasn't only that, but the normally light grip on his pencil-case was tight and heavy-handed. She wouldn't be surprised if the thing exploded in his hands.

She checked his work, and wasn't as surprised to see that he'd drawn the 'go' and the 'hachi' wrong.

"I think he's stressed," said Ai, curling her pencil around her fingers.

The elder woman frowned. "You think so?"

"Something's really wrong with Conan-kun, though!" Yoshida Ayumi cried from her position a few desks away. "This morning he wouldn't talk to any of us!" The sweet little girl was twisting her own wrists in worry.

Her two friends Tsubaraya Mitsuhiko and Kojima Genta nodded. "He just sat on the bench outside waiting for the bell to ring," Genta continued. "He didn't come near any of us."

"He was suddenly aloof. None of us understand why," said Mitsuhiko, crossing his arms. "It didn't seem like he was stressed. It was more like he was scared of us."

Kobayashi took all of this in. The boy's behaviour didn't add up. His falling asleep in class, the bad kanji in his book, not talking to his friends, and a complete change in demeanour... It was like one of her favourite mystery novels, except the focus was on the kid detective club rather than Akechi Kogorou (she'd always sniggered when she thought about it. Kogorou the great detective and a bunch of children who saw him as their mentor, not to mention how Kobayashi was also the leader of the Boy Detective Club while she was the sponsor of the Shounen Tantei . A great coincidence). And this time, they weren't hunting mysteries; they already had one right under their nose. She bit her lip, not knowing what to expect as she walked out and closed the door.

And Conan wasn't anywhere to be seen.

MKMKMKMKMK

_Conan-kun, are you okay?_ Shin'ichi asked. The feeling of a warm embrace enveloped the small boy as he leaned against the wall of the boys' toilets. He'd legged it as soon as he'd walked out of the door, heading straight out of the room. Currently he was panting heavily; although the journey was short, so were his legs.

"How do you talk to them?" he asked. "How can you stand walking into a room with hundreds of people and just be able to talk in front of them? Do your work in front of them?"

_Conan-kun, there weren't hundreds of people in there. It was only our class._

"But it really felt like there were a thousand eyes on me..." the little boy muttered, closing his eyes. "You're really brave, Shin'ichi-nii-chan."

Shin'ichi was left speechless. _I... I am?_ he mumbled.

"I like watching you, you know," Conan said, sliding down the wall to a seated position. "You always confront the danger with a courageous look on your face. You go up against vicious murderers all the time. Just the fact that you've stayed as me for so long is enough to tell me just how brave you are. And you're fading away, and yet you _still_ don't throw a fit. And I can't even talk to Ayumi-chan, Mitsuhiko-kun or Genta-kun on my own. How do you do that when I can't even sit in a room full of people my apparent age?"

The most that the older tantei could do was sighing and trying to offer condolence. _I have no idea. Maybe you're my negative or something. That would make sense. A soft touch where I'm sharp, dark where I'm light and vice versa. But even if that's not true, if you're going to have to be the same Edogawa Conan-kun that I created as a personality, then I'll help you face your fears. So we're going to go back there, confront our sensei and sit back in our seat and learn to write our one-to-ten in correct stroke order... not that I ever bothered. Seriously, this has absolutely nothing to do with real life. If we haven't got freaking brush pens then how can we call it stroke order anyway?_

Conan giggled.

_Never thought that sound would exit _my _mouth._

MKMKMKMKMK

Hakuba blinked at the screen. Or, rather, at the audio.

"Chaos Control..." he whispered to himself. The strange words had been given to Kaito by that energetic-sounding voice, which he could only assume was that of an alien. He didn't know any people around here who spoke in perfect English with an American accent, or who spoke in that particular tone. And that was where the audio had ended: when Kaitou KID had yelled out the words in a rather archaic pronunciation and every noise in that room had just stopped. Every single one - the metallic carnage, the thumps, the footsteps, a gun cocking just feet away from the camera and the yell issuing from the mouth of another alien who could only have been directly in front of him – had quite simply stopped.

Like a mute button.

Except it was more of the 'skip chapter' button, because the next sound he'd heard was Nakamori's voice from over in his side of the anomaly. Add that to the flash of light and the complete disappearance of KID until this morning, and one had a theory.

"Chaos Control... means 'teleport'."

"Exactly what I was thinking."

* * *

A/N: Conan is devoted to Shin'ichi. Conan loves Shin'ichi. Shin'ichi is devoted to Conan. But does Shin'ichi love Conan?


	9. Conan's Fears

Now, let us reverse time for a moment from the point that the last chapter ended on and return to the home of our very interesting 'koukousei kaitou', Kuroba Kaito, some minutes previously to all this.

The boy began juggling the jewel absent-mindedly as he sat down on his bed, watching the light reflect through the facets. _This was one hell of a find_, he thought to himself as he glanced down at the floor. The entire carpet was painted a faint beautiful ruby red, not to mention the fact that the socks strewn on the floor, once faded, now looked like they had been re-dyed.

It wasn't what he had expected. 'Emerald' sent him images of small green rocks that were relatively heavy and remarkably unreflective for something so expensive. This thing... it was light, it was the size of his fist and it was bright red - as far as he'd learned, emeralds couldn't be red; the only possible colour range for emeralds was yellow to blue – and the light was being refracted everywhere in a much more intense form that it had entered. Not to mention the fact that in the other world it had glowed brightly under the moonlight. And that it had special powers of teleportation.

If you removed the mentions of size, weight and took the 'of teleportation' away from the end of 'special powers', you could almost call it Pandora: it was red, it glowed under moonlight and it had special powers. And if the black-coats ever caught wind of this, they definitely would. It matched a lot of their criteria minus the form of the inner part of a doublet.

Though, the question still remained as to the colour. Why call it an Emerald if it was red?

"You're not a Kaosu Emerald," he finally decided. "You're a Kaosu Nofekh. Or a Kaosu Yasepheh. Not a Kaosu Emerald."

Smirking to himself at the rather obscure joke he'd just made, he stood up. Thanks to that creature in the other world, he'd discovered how it worked. It seemed odd, though. One would think you'd need to put a stone under weird conditions to get it to exert magical powers, but this one you apparently needed to shout at to get it working. Huh.

Kaito wasn't a detective, much as it interested him, but he did know quite a bit. It helped when he was planning heists to know the nuances of language, especially in the note-writing and research stages. However, his understanding wasn't as complete as he might hope it was. The result of having to do so much of it had resulted in the boy's acquisition of several English dictionaries and thesauruses, and it was these that grabbed from his shelf, flicking through them.

'Kaosu', as a few would have you know, was the Japanese transliteration of the original Greek pronunciation of the word 'chaos', which back then referred to a large emptiness, or space. The English word 'space', going along from that, meant both a general term glancing over everything outside of the Earth's atmosphere and the placement of objects in relation to one another. 'Chaos' in the English language also meant disorder and an irregular, unpredictable action that was remarkably sensitive to regular changes in environment. 'Control' meant influence, authority and dictation over something, not an easy concept to explain, but not hard for people to understand. Add the two together, and you got the implication of controlling something random or, more accurately, controlling space.

'Chaos Control', as would be stated by Hakuba some miles and minutes away, meant the ability to teleport.

Kaito snickered. Now that he had that part worked out, maybe he should drop in on tantei-san?

He walked across the hall and into the entertainment suite, which was better equipped now than it had been when he started. It used to be his mother and father's bedroom, but after the accident, his mother had moved into the guest room and moved everything electronic and not to do with the kitchen into this room. However, it _was_ his father, not to mention her husband, and there were still some of his things in the room. For example, the dresser that had once sat behind the bed was there, the bottom drawer full of his socks. And also, there still hung on the wall a large, five-foot-long portrait of the man on stage, holding a conspicuous white hat with blue ribbon (he wondered now he'd never considered his father to be the KID after seeing the guy) from which birds flew out. And it was this that he was headed to.

He pushed lightly on the painting. It responded by rotating on a central axis, flipping inwards and allowing him to step through into the Batcave-like place he called Kaitou KID's true home.

His thieving uniform, the white tuxedo, was hung up, washed without trace of blood on the back. So his mother knew about the room, not to mention the night job. He groaned. Now a parent was involved... this was getting dangerous. Not many superheroes had parents involved without that parent - or those parent_s_ - dying.

Kaito sighed, taking off his pyjamas and taking the suit off the coat-hanger, before diving behind the red convertible that his dad had somehow stuffed into the room. The upstairs didn't have much space to change and he did want to keep his decency intact until he actually got the thing on. His mother may have been out, but who else now knew about this room?

He buttoned up the shirt, and paused.

A hat. Hadn't he left a top hat in the other world?

Yes, and he'd put the tracker on it, which meant... He put on his gloves, then snatched the earring out of the drawer and held it to his ear, dialling the code number that had been carved on the base of the gadget. He listened.

"..._seventy kilometres south, ten kilometres west_..."

Now that was interesting, considering that wasn't where the anomaly was. Maybe it wasn't working? The signal might have been messed up because of the anomaly. Something like that. Shrugging, he took an extra, more battered hat from the coat-hook next to the door and put it on. He slid the monocle back over his eye, and stared down the red Emerald.

"Take me to tantei-san," he grinned, taking it in his hand. The face of the British detective flashed through his mind. "_Kaosu Control_!"

The light suddenly bleached the room white. He stretched out his arms, trying to discern what was happening, but his eyes were forced shut as the world threatened to blind him if he didn't.

Suddenly, the floor removed itself from under his feet, and then returned.

"Chaos Control... means 'teleport'."

Kaito looked up to see Hakuba lying stretched on a sofa in front of him, one hand on a computer mouse and the other gripping a piece of toast.

He smiled. "Exactly what I was thinking," he said, crossing his arms.

Hakuba whipped around in panic. "What on..." His eyes ran up and down the white-clothed character that had suddenly appeared in his room, and finally landed on the red gem resting between his fingers. He relaxed visibly, although the tension was still there, just less noticeable.

"I see you worked it out faster than I did," he said in English. "Of course, the fact that you have the Emerald helps a lot more than this video."

"I wouldn't know. How long did it take you to work this out, tantei-san?" the thief asked, slipping into the language smoothly.

Hakuba crossed his arms. "The term is 'detective' in English," he muttered. "Now, would you explain to me what happened there or do I have to bring out the shotgun?"

"'Detective' isn't nearly as personal-sounding as 'tantei-san'," Kaito replied playfully, before putting his hands up. "And oh, dear. I don't recall part of the fox's plan to be stealing firearms from the farmers. I believe it was something to do with burrowing and stealing chickens."

"Would you like to lose your tail as well?" the ainoko rambled. "Now, please, tell me. What happened in the other world?"

Kaito hesitated, and brought his arms down slowly, then walked towards the light-haired teenager. He took him by the shoulders and, amused at the other's hitched breath, pushed him lightly into the seat. Taking his seat next to him, he slipped off a glove and took a piece of toast, eying it suspiciously. When he discovered the butter on it, he placed it back down. Hakuba blinked.

"Lactose intolerance?" he smirked. "Would this be able to identify you in any way?"

"I'm Japanese; _that_ will identify me better. Lactose intolerance only serves to hide me deeper in the crowd." Kaito winked. "Now, then, you wish to know what happened?"

The detective nodded. "Just tell me already. What did the aliens look like? Other than that strange man; I've gotten enough of a look at him for one lifetime already."

"And I also." Kaito adjusted his position. "The aliens were... unique, to put it in the best way. They were bipedal, had brightly-coloured fur, and had an unusually large skull, to put it in the most literal."

Hakuba nodded. "So, the strange man wasn't one of them?"

"He matched their body shape, not so much the size of the head, feet or hands. He described himself as a human, saying there were colonies spread across their world." He scratched the skin near the facial clasp of the monocle. "The aliens were fast, as well, and very powerful considering their skeletal structure. When I broke out of the glass cell, for example, one was fighting off a giant mecha using its feet and the top of its head. It was like an American cartoon."

"Judging from what I heard of them, it sounds like you did walk into an American cartoon," Hakuba agreed. "Two of the accents were mid-American while one of them was a very bad Australian. All three were male and with a very decent command of the English language. I have no clue what Doctor Eggman's accent was, though."

"He sounded vaguely like you," Kaito remarked lightly. The blond shot him an offended look. "I meant accent-wise."

"That wasn't a British accent, that was clearly American," Hakuba argued.

"Are you kidding? He was hardly as nasally as an American."

"Let's just keep going," the other cut in, waving his arms around in an attempt to stifle the phantom thief. "What actually happened to you, then?" Kaito's blank expression seemed to grow dark, and he tensed up. For a second Hakuba must have thought he'd made a grave mistake,

There was silence for a few minutes, before he swallowed. "That man had possession of a device I recognised from a run-in with a rather insane professor some years ago," he began. "The device was involved in programming an android identical in appearance and personality to my civilian persona, by downloading the data from my brain. I... I had to put it down after it grew feral. I always thought the machine would stay abandoned, but that Eggman travelled through the anomaly and found the machine. I believe the new upgrades were meant to make it _remove_ data rather than simply download it. It did not work; as you can see, I'm clearly not a zombie right now.

"Thankfully, one of the aliens saved my life by causing a distraction that damaged my bonds. I was able to retrieve my prize, which seems to have been used as a power source for the device – that was the point where I was rudely interrupted by some of Eggman's minions. That was where the Australian one came in and snatched it out of my hand. Luckily, I was faster with my gun and with the distracter's advice I was able to escape."

"So that was that voice shouting to use Chaos Control," the British boy murmured thoughtfully. "He knew exactly what that jewel did."

Kaito crossed his arms. "That would be because he was one of the aliens on the original footage, now that I recall," he said. "He very clearly talked about the Kaosu Emeralds on the tape when he was discussing it over with his cute little friend. I would be able to recognise that voice from a mile away."

Hakuba leaned back in his seat, taking a bit of the now cold toast. Kaito watched him with internal glee. Obviously the man was intent to try and figure out what the creature had meant.

Well, so was Kaito. It hadn't been coincidence, certainly, since everybody else had been trying to get him away from the damn thing; that was what he could figure out. That creature had wanted him – no, needed him – to take the Emerald away. But why was a mystery. It could have been anyone who had sent that probe, even the black-coats, and the wrong people learning of the Emeralds could have decided to take advantage of their new knowledge. To just trust the first otherworlder it (no, he; it was male, after all) came into contact with didn't sound right.

Then again, considering the little guy's actions earlier, it was obvious that he liked to take mindless risks to achieve his ends. Namely, he had blown a hole into a wall and then fought a giant robot, all while commanding the strange kid in white to get out of there by taking something that was clearly very important to their world.

Hakuba eventually sighed and stood up. "You had to take it. He considered Eggman to be to a larger threat than you," he reasoned. "Maybe he needed you to get it out of that world, so that Eggman couldn't reach it."

"Hmm... He did seem a little stupid. Maybe I should tell tantei-kun about this?"

"Hmm?"

Kaito grinned. "_Kaosu Control_."

MKMKMKMKMK

Conan was no longer struggling, and he had settled into the classroom easily after that little heart-to-heart in the toilets. Ms Kobayashi had been impressed with his improvements – the kanji was written in the correct order and the answers more or less perfect, though the standard lower than his regular work. He was still awkward, though, and that had worried her distinctly.

It was break-time, however, and no longer time for her to be intruding, so she simply left for the staff room while the Shounen Tantei decided to talk to him.

"What was that about this morning, Conan-kun?" asked Ayumi pleadingly.

Conan knotted his fingers together. "It wasn't anything much," he replied quietly, head bowed. He clutched the pencil-case still. Attempts to remove it by Ms Kobayashi had been somewhat unsuccessful. Every few seconds or so there was a small shiver. "I've just been a little restless lately. That's all."

Mitsuhiko put a finger to his bottom lip in a parody of an adult's thinking pose. "Come to think of it, you were sleeping in class the day before yesterday, weren't you? Maybe you're still feeling a bit sick; there has been a cold bug going around, after all."

Both Genta and Ayumi wore a worried face, though Ayumi's was more intense than Genta's. "If you're still sick, you should have stayed at home!" the little girl cried. "So you can get some rest and come to school again when you're feeling better!"

"Calm down, A-Ayumi-chan. It's not like I'm dying," Conan said, stuttering slightly, before picking his backpack up off the floor. "I'm completely fine." The others watched with wide eyes as he dug inside and pulled out a large book, written in English text, with a large title on the cover reading _The Complete Sherlock Holmes_. He opened it to the bookmarked page and trailed his finger underneath the letters.

Ai was hardly amused, though the grin on her face would tell you otherwise. "Are you falling asleep because you're concentrating too much on that old book, Edogawa-kun?" she remarked, arms crossed.

"I'm just rereading it." He grimaced. "It's not like reading a book will kill me, is it, Haibara?"

"You should stop using those words in front of children, you're scaring them," the not-so-little girl replied. "If you're not dying, then it's hardly a fact you need to underline, especially with Ayumi-chan here." _Kudou-kun, something's terribly wrong with you today. Tell me what it is. And do so when they're gone._ That was what she was really saying.

"Speak for yourself," he mumbled, burying his head in his book again. Ai sighed, leaving her seat and pulling the others away.

When they had reached the back of the room, she drew them into a group huddle, and peered out. The boy was still reading his book and was still clutching his pencil-case like a real small child would carry a blanket. He was hunched over in his seat, and his fingers trembled slightly every time he turned the page. A few other students gathered around him, wondering how he could be reading the foreign language at all when it looked like it was just made up of the buzz words that so many advertising campaigns used; he tugged the book a little closer to himself with a shy demeanour. As if he was so shy about these things normally.

"Alright, keep your voices low," she said, nodding over to the boy. "How was he this morning? I don't usually talk to him unless we're out or sitting next to each other."

"Conan-kun kept bowing his head and sitting alone," Genta said. "He didn't look like he wanted any disturbing, so we just mostly kept away from him."

Ai raised an eyebrow. "Mostly?"

They all looked at each other, before Mitsuhiko spoke. "Ayumi-chan thought it would be best if she approached him first."

"I thought he wouldn't be as scared of me as he would of Mitsuhiko-kun and Genta-kun," she explained. "But when I got near him he shuffled away. He looked like a mouse running from a cat!"

The last part nearly reached Ayumi's naturally loud speaking volume. Ai shushed her quickly, but Conan had already glanced over his shoulder and looked back. Despite the whole gesture only taking a few seconds, she had clearly seen a naturally curious expression on his face... tinged with the paleness of fear.

"Could it be he's actually scared of us?" the freckled boy behind her asked quietly.

She paused, and then shook her head. "I don't believe that for a second. Edogawa-kun's... a lot braver than that. He's always been that way. If anything, he's more likely going to be scared for us rather than of us."

It was unlikely that the Organisation had discovered him, although they certainly knew of one member who could identify him as Kudou Shin'ichi: Vermouth, or Chris Vineyard, or Sharon Vineyard, whatever you wanted to call her. However, her only spat seemed to be with Jodie Starling, an FBI agent they were well acquainted with and had recently helped out in a bank robbery. Then there was a friend of Ran's that he'd told her about named Hondou Eisuke, who was also currently involved in the FBI, CIA and Black Organisation's joint drama, but he was away in America and had no contact with them except through his older sister who didn't know. Surely his parents weren't as stupid, either; only when they were with people with no connection to Ran, Kogorou or the local police was he referred to as their son, and then Conan's cover story was that they had him while holidaying in Los Angeles. Anybody who knew how long they had been in Los Angeles would actually realise this not to be possible, even if he did look even younger than he should do.

She needed to know more.

* * *

A/N: Obscure references are my specialty, especially biblical ones. But poor Conan, poor Kaito and poor Hakuba...


	10. Three Shades of Blue

The sky was too grey, he decided. The ground was too brown, the trees were too blue and the walls of the buildings weren't so much dull as they were _dismal_. The air was sickly, too. Smelt and tasted of exhaust. No wonder so many of the people riding such ancient-looking bikes were wearing face masks. Yet everything somehow felt right.

But how could it!? It was so dull and dark yet so bright and sunny at the same time...

Two minds walked the same path, watching the same sky and one saw night and one saw day. Two minds saw different things through the same eyes. The same large, triangular, black-as-coal eyes.

He shouldn't have underestimated the big man's ability to fix his machines, nor should he have not expected there to be some kind of back-up power source. And he was paying the price for that now.

Was he meant to turn left, or was he allowed to turn right? He mused this as he reached the crossing. Was he just supposed to follow this new voice merely because it seemed to know where it was going, or could he go exploring like he wanted to do? Where was he even headed, anyway? It was like his feet just wanted the thrill of carrying him where they wanted to go instead of listening to his head and turning back.

They were staring at him, as if he were the strange one. Well, maybe he was here. After all, one long tail, a pointy muzzle, huge eyes, uniquely-coloured fur and a gun on his belt? Of course he looked strange. And they were all only humans, after all. Back home, they were the oddity, but this planet here was their territory, not his, and he looked positively alien.

Home. Where was that again? Was it here or through the anomaly?

Ugh, never mind... He continued his tense stroll through the city streets, eyes upon him growing wide as they realised what he was. The only clues to this other mind inside his head was the damaged, half-brimmed top hat in his hand and the itching of his right eye for something to go in front of it. Apart from those things, he had nothing.

The question right now didn't appear to be who he was as much as where he was going. The streets were doing their best to look bright with artworks every few feet up, down and sideways, and the characters that resembled letters spread around must have been trying to enliven people with encouraging words, right? Maybe the whole point to the amazing decoration of this place – the strange pictures even appeared on the sides of vehicles – was to keep people happy within their dull world.

But, the nagging foreign voice in his head told him, they were there simply to advertise. It was the effect of commercialisation.

Well, didn't _that_ ruin his moment of clever thinking.

He turned down an alleyway, if only to keep the eyes off him for once.

MKMKMKMKMK

"For Aurora's sake, hurry up! We need to get that Emerald back!"

"I'm going as fast as possible, but we completely trashed this thing the last time we used it and I needed to do some maintenance anyway. Just be patient, okay?"

"Pfft. Patience is for losers."

"_Patience_ wouldn't have lost the Chaos Emerald."

The first speaker glared at the newcomer. "Oh, and this comes from Mister 'Charge the Guy and Allow Him to Get the Emerald through Sleight of Hand'?" he remarked snidely, shooting a grin in his direction.

The other crossed his arms. "Oh, right, like I was supposed to know he was a magician."

"Well, the white suit, the top-hat, the cape, the gloves-"

"Shut up!" Knuckles pounded the table, sending a shockwave through the floor that knocked over the stool the second speaker had been standing on. He fell over onto the front of the machine, knocking the whole thing down into the floor.

The first speaker shot him a definite look. "Look, do you want that Emerald back or not?"

The red alien begrudgingly nodded. "Yes, I do, and fast. Eggman's little show last night in Metropolis shouldn't be repeated."

"Well, then." The first speaker stood up, brushing back his long spines. "Don't argue with me." He fixed his gaze upon the second speaker. "You're right, I should cool it, but Eggman's not gonna take too long to recharge that energy core. We have to get the Chaos Emerald back as fast as possible, so just do a quick fix job so that we can get out of here and find that kid." He walked out of the door, fists clenched.

The second speaker stood up, having only just managed to right the machine. "Ever since the scouting robot washed up on the beach, he's been really tense," he said. "At first I thought it was because we're not supposed to be able to go to other dimensions unless something bad happens, but last night must have made it a lot worse."

"A _lot_ happens to be an understatement," Knuckles growled. "Eggman nearly killed a human, and deliberately. Then somebody _else_ gets attacked and disappears, the Chaos Emerald goes missing into the hands of a kid from another dimension, not to mention the energy coming off the portal just doubled."

"Right, so don't antagonise him." The other, much younger alien dived back into his toolbox. "He says he doesn't want another casualty on his hands, especially not one of a human."

"Not our fault humans are weaklings. Most of them get by using their intelligence, and even that doesn't come in spades."

"Right. But you know how he is," he continued. "He blames himself for everything that happens to everybody he can't save. Besides, I wouldn't like to see anybody get hurt either."

MKMKMKMKMK

He stopped, standing out at the very edge of the sandy orange cliff that pulled out from the side of the land. Before him stretched an impressive ocean, almost as blue as his fur, and the Angel Island hovered in the distance as if nothing had happened. In the air, a few miles off the coast, was a small floating green object, the only sign of trouble.

He sat down, swinging his legs over the edge and kicking the rock lightly. The world around him was so horrifically peaceful and calm. Even the waves weren't as high as they were last night. The whole sea was as a giant mirror...

His fingers unconsciously wound together.

"When that portal appeared," he mused silently, "I thought the tournament was on again. But it's only been a few months since then..."

A few months, and that wasn't really a lot. So much more had happened in the last four years compared to the last four months. Everything, from the first day that Doctor Ivo Robotnik had taken it just a little too far and unleashed several of his robots on the local islands. He was pretty lucky to have made it so far into his life considering how many times he'd been knocked about, blown up and drowned (the last not exactly the most pleasant of happenings, especially when one couldn't swim too well).

He stared the pipe down. "Wonder if that kid's alright..." _I mean, yikes, he was bleeding from the back of the neck. And if he didn't end up where he wanted to, it was only a short while until he passed out .And if medical attention didn't arrive on time... that doesn't even bare thinking about._ He glumly rested his head on the ball of one hand. _We've gotta get up there and get to that kid fast._

MKMKMKMKMK

A vehicle pulled up beside him as he emerged from yet another alleyway in this bustling city. He turned his head, scanning it over.

The local law enforcement division, was it? It didn't look as bad as the military, though maybe it was just a minor division or something. The human (male, medium height for a human, blue jacket, black tie, thick dark hair and rather exotic-looking eyes) exiting the car was carrying a weapon, after all. But that didn't prove anything if you considered the revolver he was carrying himself.

They stared each other down intensely, the other humans stopping and staring at them. Then the man raised his walkie-talkie to his mouth, other hand hovering over his weapon just in case things got hairy – no pun intended.

He began speaking in some strange language. The creature perked his ears up, trying to understand; some words were more distinguishable among others, but it seemed the voice in his head only spoke Human Standard, while these people used some strange local dialect that didn't even seem to have a similar structure.

A female voice echoed back from the speaker in between short bursts of static. The man looked down at the thing with an exasperated expression, and then knelt down.

He held his hand out. The creature crossed its arms, his crooked tail twitching behind him.

The officer switched on the speaker and spoke into it again. The response came back, snappy with a touch of confusion, if not anything else. The man jumped, before sighing and getting up.

Approaching him? With his hand still over his gun? Not likely.

The creature raised his own revolver, targeting for the hand and shooting twice. The pistol fell on the floor. Screams went up from around and he scarpered as the officer dropped, clutching his wrist with his face contorted in pain.

He hurried down the street, stuffing the gun back into its holster again as he did so; the other humans didn't look quite as threatening. He turned several corners and then stopped to catch his breath, leaning against the cream-coloured stone wall, before he looked up. He was standing next to a big manor-type house, with a super-modern architectural disaster right next door. The gate to the manor was perfectly fine, but the unkempt grass behind it made the place resemble a haunted house. Meanwhile, next door had a distinctly clinical appearance to it, with a yellow round... thing parked up in front, and the path was clean, possibly freshly-swept.

He knew where he was going.

The doors opened up into a large main hallway, with doors branching off in different directions and a spiral staircase near the back. The floor was slightly dusty, but compared to the front, this looked cleaner, more... lived in? Was that the phrase for it? The collection of slippers, trainers, football boots and black formal shoes beside him told him that, yes, somebody did live here, or at least had done until recently. They were a family, at that, if the varying sizes were anything to go by. And they were probably still in residence as well.

The voice in his head told him to take off his shoes. He glanced down at his large feet, and then at the scuffs, which were a few sizes smaller and a lot flatter, before smirking. Like he would ever fit into those. The voice was an idiot.

It was the middle of the day, and humans often went out in the morning to their workplaces, so the place seemed deserted for now. He crept in, searching all the doors, and finally located a kitchen.

So people here stuffed their fridges with some kind of noodle food packed into plastic packaging and labelled with lots of weird letters... it didn't look very appetising. He'd kill for some pika, and by that he meant kill something other than the pika. (Obviously.) But since there wasn't any pika around or a person to kill for it, and because he didn't want to dare eat the clearly uncooked noodles without knowing where the microwave was, he closed the fridge door.

His stomach complained at him for doing so. He hadn't had a meal in a whole day.

Or a drink for that matter. He could survive without the food for a while, he guessed, but water was a necessity if he wanted to make it further than a week in this world. He dipped back in and fished out a plastic carton with a picture of an orange on it, bit into the top with his sharp teeth, and tipped the thing back, letting the juice drip down his parched throat.

Finished, he put the carton onto the work-surface and walked back into the hall.

He needed a hidey-hole. Of course, the problem with that was that he had no idea where such a hidey-hole was.

MKMKMKMKMK

During lunchtime, Conan settled himself down at the bench outside in the schoolyard with some food. The others had followed him, of course, much to his chagrin, but he'd agreed to their accompaniment anyway. Their eyes were now trained on his back while he observed his surroundings with all the concentration of a magpie, hugging himself slightly. His heels kept striking the wood of the bench leg.

"He looks like he's not listening," Ai said. They were sitting at a bench behind him.

Mitsuhiko tipped his head sideways. "He looks like he's not himself. Did he ever kick the bench like this before?"

"He didn't, no," Ayumi mumbled. "Maybe we should ask him what's wrong."

"I don't think that'll help much," Genta answered, effectively shooting that plan down. "Hey, what's that in his hand?"

The little boy was indeed pulling something round from his pocket. He placed it to his ear, bowing his head with his other hand up to his mouth.

"That's the earring phone we used to save us and TWO-MIX," Ayumi noted. "I haven't seen that thing in a long time. But what's he got that for?"

Conan suddenly stiffened all over in his seat. The others blinked as he pushed himself off the seat, turning slightly. His grip had tightened into the microphone, and he seemed almost hunched over.

"I'm sorry, there's some interference," he was saying. "Can you repeat that? ... You're kidding me. Are you sure about that?" He curled the wire around his finger involuntarily. "...Did something blow up again, hakase?"

At this the others all pricked up their ears. "He's talking to Agasa-hakase?"

The boy shot a quick glare at them. They exchanged anxious glances, before Ai walked up to him.

"Edogawa-kun, what is it?" she asked in the politest voice she could manage without sounding too suspicious.

The boy stepped back from her, shrinking a little into his shoulders. "Haibara-chi... Haibara. It's nothing. Hakase just called because there's something he needs to show me as soon as possible. I'm just going to be leaving school now-"

He was cut off by the sharp look in her eyes. "What's going on?" she asked, tone still neutral. Her fingers digging into his shoulder told him otherwise.

"...Agasa-hakase spotted something moving inside ni- my old house," he spluttered. "He wanted me to come over and check it back straight away, b-but ... I just need to go."

"Does it concern the organisation?" she asked. Ah, yes, the organisation responsible for their transformation. It was still a touchy subject, what with Haibara's origins in the group, and Conan usually tended to excuse her from any conversation involving the group. Needless to say, when even some out-of-town second rate high school detective was allowed in on the delicate parts but she was hardly given the bare details (unless he wanted to pick her brain exclusively, but Conan had a very misogynistic opinion when it came to who to trust), that reeked of conspiracy.

He shook his head, caught off guard for a second. "No – yes – I don't know, alright? That's why I want to check it out!" He tugged himself out of her grip and ran off. Ai was left standing there, colour swiftly draining from her face.

He had used 'boku'.

MKMKMKMKMK

"It's ready!" He came running out of the shed-like building, down the long runway. "We're ready for take-off!" He ground to a halt. "Hello?"

The spot on the edge of the cliff had long been abandoned. There were scuff marks across the dirt; he looked over his shoulder and saw how they stretched out far behind him.

Sighing, he turned around and looked out at the ocean.

"What did you say?"

He jumped. The missing was now right behind him, having approached without a single sound. "What did you do that for!?" he cried exasperatedly, coughing from the extremely lagging dust clouds.

"Just needed a little jolt to get me going. Don't worry, I'm okay." He put his hands on his hips. "Well, come on, then! " He began his – incredibly short – run back to the garage. The younger alien watched him as he went.

Dark blue fur with peach-coloured arms, stomach and muzzle; pointed, catlike ears bent forward with determination; shimmering forest green eyes; long spines flowing back from his head. He was through the door within milliseconds, his feet a blur, arms flung behind him. All the while, a large cheeky smirk was plastered across his face. But it only served to mask his real inner turmoil. The world had never been kind towards the hedgehog, particularly not recently.

Grinning, Miles 'Tails' Prower span his twin namesakes and accelerated towards his mechanics garage.

* * *

A/N: It's very difficult to write a character and not reveal who he is, especially when you realise it could be obvious simply from the way he talks.


	11. The Twilight Zone

Conan held the phone in his ear while running. He couldn't take the skateboard, since he'd left that back at the Agency. "Agasa-hakase, repeat every single word of what you just said to me!" he cried into the microphone.

"_What else should I say? There was some noise coming from your house, and Okiya-kun isn't in at the moment, so I decided to look in secretly using some binoculars. There was a strange silhouette looking around your room!_" the old man narrated down the phone.

The little boy bit his lip. "Could it be an Organisation member?" he asked, darting past some crowds...

And then he backtracked. There were a large number of people waiting around as a pair of police cars pulled up around them. Out stepped a weighty, stern man in a brown coat and hat, hurrying over to push through the group. He was followed by a young woman in her late twenties with short black hair, who suddenly broke into a sprint, shoving everybody of the way desperately. It was an amazing change from her regular demeanour, Conan noted.

"_Shin'ichi-kun, is something wrong? I hear sirens._"

"Megure-keibu just appeared. Along with Satou-keiji. She looked angry. I think something might have happened to a friend." The boy gripped the microphone tighter. He could go after the person who was sneaking around in his house, or he could go investigate a possible murder of a relative of the police officers he had spent so many of his waking hours with. It was a tough decision; the Organisation was dangerous and, if they had sent anybody directly into his house, then trouble was bound to be up. Meanwhile, he was a detective before he was a silver bullet. He had to help out any way he could. "What should I do?"

"_I can keep an eye on the intruder for now – he doesn't seem to be leaving any time soon. Besides, they're your colleagues, even if you're not meant to be Kudou Shin'ichi anymore, right?_"

The little boy gulped. Even if he technically wasn't Shin'ichi, he still hated that line. "Right. Okay." He pressed the 'end call' button and stowed the item away in his pocket, before running across the street. "Megure-keibu! Megure-keibu!"

The portly man turned around. "Oh, it's you, Conan-kun," he muttered.

"What happened?" He gestured to the small gathering of people.

"Takagi-kun called in while driving to another scene," Megure explained. "He had an encounter with... something. It's resulted in injury."

Conan visibly gulped. Megure eyed the boy. Conan was known around the police force for being one of the most stable people around a murder scene. Not even many of the officers could hold in their stomachs at the more gruesome deaths, and his carer Ran (for Kogorou was clearly not qualified enough, and his daughter had him practically whipped anyway) always performed an infamous scream. And yet the eight-year-old boy was the most professional of them all. It might have had something to do with over-exposure, he reckoned; of course that theory was driven out when you considered that the first time Megure had ever seen the child was at a crime scene – according to Ran, it was their first dead body in a long list – and yet he'd still been as steely as ever. To see him panicking now was not good.

And it raised some questions about why.

"Conan-kun, do you know anything about what might have attacked him?" he asked the child.

"N-nothing. I don't know anything, sorry," he muttered, and looked back over at the people. Satou Miwako emerged, along with a young man about three years her junior with sharp cheekbones and wide puppy-dog eyes... and a hand covered in blood and bandages. Clearly, somebody in the crowd had had the clear sense to perform some first aid on him rather than stand there paralyzed like any regular individual.

She whipped around at the sound of footsteps in a protective matter, but hesitated when she saw Conan's signature glasses and cowlick. "It's just Conan-kun," she muttered, tone harsher than she might have realised it to be. "Takagi-kun's been injured. The culprit got away easily."

"Did anybody see him?" Conan asked, trying to wear Shin'ichi's brave face.

"_Everybody_ did," Takagi enlightened him. "It was kinda hard not to. The only reason it got away was because everybody was looking and trying to figure out what the heck was going on."

He blinked. "...It?"

"Some weird thing about three foot tall with a cowboy hat and a pistol," the officer replied. "It shot me in the hand. It kinda looked like a rat."

Satou suddenly grabbed his head. "Maybe it was a stress-induced hallucination or – or maybe you just thought the guy was a literal rat for shooting you and it's caught on," she suggested. "Sit down while I ask why somebody didn't think to call an ambulance."

She hurried off into the crowd, flashing her badge as if she were a higher-ranking officer. Takagi rubbed his head, before sitting up and clutching his red-covered fist. "It was a rat, I'm telling you! But a three-foot-tall one with a long, crinkled tail and weird-coloured nose... not to mention that it _shot_ me!"

"Is Takagi-nii-chan feeling alright?" he said quickly. Then his breath caught. Did he normally call him 'nii-chan' or was it usually 'keiji'!?

Luckily, he didn't seem to notice. It was a good thing that Conan always acted cute every now and then as part of his nature. "Of course I'm not feeling alright, I was shot in the hand!" he shouted. "It was completely embarrassing, not to mention that Satou-san heard it all over the radio… Damn it, just when everything was going fine."

"Do you know where the rat went?" Conan asked.

"It fled down the alleyway," he replied, gesturing with his one good hand. "Hey, isn't Niichoume down that way?"

"_Niichoume_!?" At once he shot down the alley, dodging Satou as he did so, whose expression was becoming more and more incredulous as she asked around. Niichoume was the area where Shin'ichi's residence was. Now he had an idea of his mysterious intruder…

MKMKMKMKMK

Sonic hopped onto the wing of the plane, adopting his take-off position. Knuckles, grimacing at the actions of the hedgehog, opted instead for the seat behind the pilot.

"Sonic, do you have any idea where we're going?" he asked, crossing his arms.

The fifteen-year-old looked down at him and grinned. "Nope!" he exclaimed cheekily. "But if I know anything, then it's that cross-dimensional trips always end up in some kind of adventure, right?"

"And that's what I'm worried we'll run into..." Knuckles growled.

MKMKMKMKMK

He went up to the landing after some brief exploring of the downstairs (the place was like a small village to him considering the available space, with a large study full of books and a pretty nicely-decorated living room), and gave his surroundings a good examination. Never knew when humans might pop up and try to catch him again. Especially those law enforcement officers. They seemed to be all over the place recently, all ready to spring a trap on him. And he daren't forget the detectives that were chasing him...

...What?

He clutched his head, and continued to look.

The landing was still quite dusty, and the carpet ruffled in stripes of dark and light (it had probably had a vacuum run over it or something in the last few days, possibly last night, and why did he keep thinking things like that!?) There were family photographs – real ones, not stilled televisions or anything like that but real photographs on real paper in real wooden frames - adorning the walls, of a three-person family. Though the fact that the images were in colour wasn't useful in telling him anything, the clothing was similar to that of the humans outside, which at least told him that a family did recently live here. There were also the faint scents of the people that confused his nose for a second there. Several scents, to be more precise. Then again, many people must have stayed or visited or something; although a few of them were particularly strong in comparison.

The most powerful of these led into a room with an open door, so he ducked low to the floor instinctively.

There was a tense silence.

The scent seemed familiar to him, somehow. It made every strand of fur on his body stand up on end and caused him to freeze up like something dipped into liquid nitrogen. He wasn't sure where he'd bumped into it before, though. Maybe it belonged to somebody he'd met back home.

Of course, that being impossible, judging that this was supposed to be a completely different dimension and that he'd only known Eggman who had come through, and to grab that weird rock... though logically, shouldn't he have tried just using that in the first place? Then maybe the Chaos Emerald wouldn't have gotten away... darn fridge logic.

And just then, the door burst open. A small boy who looked about four or five stumbled in and made it to the foot of the stairs, before stopping dead in his tracks, sharp blue eyes wide open behind his old glasses. He was a cute kid, only just as tall as he was, with thick black hair pressed to his head and a very wiry frame, but the look he was giving him was more than the confusion that the other humans had been showing. In fact, he didn't know what to call it.

And then the little boy swore violently, knelt down and pressed a button on the side of his shoe.

He daren't take any chances here, then. The last time he'd met anybody with special shoes, they'd managed to walk all over him. Well, almost. Change the word to 'run at Mach One' and you'd have a more realistic picture.

He removed the gun from its holster and fired off some warning shots around the kid, but he hardly flinched. What was he, suicidal or something? Anybody else who tried that often got a bullet through the skull... or at least got blown up several times. He could pretty much vouch for that, although often he was lucky and got his wings out on t- where the bloody hell was _that_ memory coming from!?

He opened his mouth. "Detective?" he muttered, still wondering where all this was coming from.

The kid stopped, eyes wide.

And then he produced a football from the buckle of his belt. Wait, what?

And he kicked it.

The damage he caused in the wall behind him was going to cost quite a bit, he reckoned, as he crouched low and aimed for the skull. This time there was no holding back.

And that was when something flew at him and embedded itself in the wall. He looked at it. It was a Jack of Spades.

A _playing card_ had just imbedded itself into the plasterwork, through layers of paint and wallpaper, until the top half of it was all that was visible. A _playing card_. Keep in mind that it was a standard-sized poker card, meaning that a hole of about four-and-a-half centimetres deep had been made with a piece of slightly-stiff paper. Understandable really, though, if one considered the speed it must have been going at for a second.

Then consider the speed it must have been going at for a second.

Yep.

Realising he was a wee bit cornered here – no, 'wee bit' was not appropriate; it was more like having the spiders on one side and the wolves on the other – he ignored the familiarity of the tactic and made a beeline for straight past the kid and managing to get through with naught but the loss of some fur to the boy's quick grabbing fingers from his tail that meant a great deal of pain right on the sensitive second tail kink. In retrospect, he reckoned, the hands should have looked as dangerous as the feet, especially when fingers began to bear a passing resemblance to daggers.

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Conan stared blankly at the lavender fur in his hand. Of all colours. "He called me 'detective'," he mumbled. His English was mangled by his heavy Tokyo-ben, but at least it was understandable.

"I know." The voice was almost identical to that of Kudou Shin'ichi's, with a hint of awkward mischievousness. Kaitou KID, or Kuroba Kaito of course (although Conan was not to know that), popped his head out of the amateur consultant's former room, tipping his hat before completely emerging with card gun being slipped into his coat's inner pocket. Now that had been a nice room for a kid. Maybe he should take up temporary residence here… "I suppose you also noticed something a little strange about him?"

"What, other than the fact that he was some kind of mutant rat my height that spoke English and wielded a Ruger KGP141?" the not-boy deadpanned, finger hovering over the button on his belt. "I hadn't a clue there was."

Kaito smirked at him. He clearly had no idea what to say, and for a very good reason too. It wasn't exactly every day you walked into your former home to discover a sentient anthropomorphic animal standing on your stairs with a gun in its hand, only to have it chased away by a famous phantom thief who never appeared unless he told you he was going to in a little note with a self-portrait in the corner. "After seeing that, I think you can guess why I'm here, hmm, tantei-kun?" he asked, proceeding to tug the card out of its notch in the wall and descend down the stairs.

"To talk about your heist last night," Conan replied, moving to cross his arms.

Before he could, however, a portly man with white hair burst through the front door, looking around wildly. "Shin'ichi-kun? I tried to stop her, but-" he cried, then suddenly realised they had the company of the thief. His eyes wide behind his glasses, he stepped back in complete shock.

Kaito, however, cheerfully waved his hand. "Oh, don't worry, ojii-san, I already worked that one out several months ago." He sat down on the steps, a few stray doves taking the opportunity to flee his cape. From his sleeve he produced a rose. "So, this 'she' would be who?"

"It would be me." A panting Ai reached the door, her unusual copper locks pressed to her forehead. "Is this what Agasa-hakase was talking about, Edogawa-kun? Kaitou KID in Shin'ichi-nii-san's old house?"

Conan shook his head. "Actually, he was talking about the..." He trailed off, entire frame stiff. Then he shook his head. "Anyway, I need you and Agasa-hakase to analyse these hairs back in the laboratory, Haibara-chi- Haibara. Sorry."

"Why would that be?" she asked sharply. Kaito jumped.

"It's because he wants to know if you can recognise what on earth that creature that just escaped from this house was," he exclaimed, mostly in panic. This girl didn't seem the type to lie to.

Everybody whipped around and stared at him. Then Ai directed a particularly powerful glare at Conan. The boy stiffened completely under her gaze, a shiver racking his body like the shockwaves of a powerful earthquake. The girl held out her hand, and he gave her the fur guiltily.

She glanced at the clump, feeling it gently in her hand. "Well, I can tell you one thing straight away. This fur obviously doesn't belong to any animal I've ever seen before."

Conan frowned. "So, you didn't see it run just a minute ago?"

"…" Ai crossed her arms and looked up at Kaito. "And this man would be?"

The magician disappeared with one spin of his cloak and a smoke bomb and reappeared in front of her immediately. He spotted the little detective looking around in confusion uncharacteristically. Well, he hadn't meant to pull out the Chaos Emerald so early, but it made for an interesting show, didn't it?

He took her hand and kissed it softly. "Kaitou KID at your service, Haibara-hime."

"I'm no princess… and you're definitely not my idea of a price," the girl replied, smirking.

Agasa looked around at the damage, especially wincing at the virtual crater that the football had left in the plaster. Conan's powerful kick was not one to contest naturally but, with the special powered kick shoes that he had created to help in chasing and capturing criminals, the results were quite often deadly. "Why are you here, then?"

"I decided to talk with tantei-kun here about the mess I ran into on my heist last night." Kaito patted the slightly-beaten hat upon his head. "I sent him a heist note before I actually executed my private performance down at the Suruga Bay. I was going to wait at the Agency for you to come home from school, but then I remembered about Mouri-san – that fine detective who does an excellent job, I assure you – would still be present in the house."

"So you came to Shin'ichi-nii-chan's house," Ai said disbelievingly.

"Yes, I did." He couldn't exactly tell them that when wanting to be taken to Conan's house while performing Chaos Control he had ended up appearing in the once-teen detective's home instead, after all. Now that would ruin the mystique.

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Sonic surveyed the green pipe ahead of them. "Hey, haven't we seen one of those things before?" he asked.

Knuckles and Tails looked up at him for a second, puzzled.

"I think that small human once invited us to participate in some kind of sports day or something…" the pilot wondered, keeping his grip on the steering wheel.

The hedgehog nodded in agreement, before looking it over again. The pipe didn't seem incredibly wide, only about seven feet in diameter. Seven feet was already quite big when you remembered their size, but there was no way that the Tornado would be able to fit into it normally unless his right hand fox had already thought up some way to shrink them into fitting. Not only that, but there was also the problem of the anomaly's very nature. What if the electronics worked if they went through one way, but didn't if they went the other? It wasn't entirely crazy; the Tornado had already malfunctioned once during a temporal storm, but the vehicle they had taken back had worked perfectly fine.

He looked down at Tails, who smiled back and then directed the plane directly to the pipe… and sped up, barrel-rolling in the process. The hedgehog deftly grabbed onto the edge of the wing, letting his feet slip off. The echidna may have been strapped in, but was faring no better, holding his head in an attempt to keep in his stomach contents.

The fox pressed a button on the steering wheel five sections before the plane reached the edge of the pipe. All of a sudden, the wings split along the middle and folded backwards, Sonic along with them.

They hurtled into the tunnel, leaving their bright and sunny planet behind.

* * *

A/N: Our intrepid heroes are bumping into the truth, it seems. And Conan's disguise is always slipping still. But the ones to feel sorry for are Takagi and Satou.

The author will be on holiday next week.


	12. Leading On

Somewhere along the distant shoreline, a strange red object could be seen tumbling out of the spacial anomaly that had everybody worried. A number of people looked up at the sound of buzzing that ultimately emanated from the vehicle's engines with surprise – after all, they had been told that no human being should go near it for fear of their life, and Kaitou KID's quick disappearance as reported by the police was enough to warn them from trying so. Add that to the alien nature of the anomaly and you had a lot to worry about. So when the thing actually came out, wings sliding back into place, and a blue thing was seen clinging onto the wings, there was obviously a burst of panic as all thoughts turned to what could only be a monster coming into the world.

Several of these people had obviously seen too many American movies or kaijuu romps to be called completely unknowledgeable. It was perfectly comprehendible that there might be life on other worlds, or that the anomaly was actually a portal to another planet. All you needed was a little imagination. Of course, the aliens on the plane would not have been happy about the assumption, especially the one who was piloting the plane that he had built himself from scratch at the age of four.

Tails adjusted his height and looked over the world below him. "It's like I'm flying over a history book," he noted, adjusting his goggles. It was so difficult to wear them with such big eyes, and their species had such an amount of hardiness about them, that most only wore them as a fashion accessory. And since fashion was completely dependent on what area you lived in, if you saw any of them covering their eyes while on a vehicle, they weren't likely to have come from the far Eastern islands that Tails and his friends called home.

"I know what you mean," Sonic muttered, adjusting back into a standing position. "This world looks a little familiar."

Tails continued flying for a while, thinking to himself. "Sonic, Knuckles, you remember the boy who appeared last night, right?" he asked. The two both nodded. "How human was he?"

"I'd say full-blooded," said Sonic. "He could use Chaos Control, but that was about it."

"Humans can't use Chaos Control, Sonic," Knuckles argued back. He waved his left hand around. "They can't understand the concept of Chaos Energy. And that's another reason that they shouldn't mix with us too much."

The blue hedgehog gave him the most incredible look. "Why can't they? They did give us our language, buildings, libraries, technology, vehicles..."

Knuckles rolled his eyes. A good chunk of what Sonic was listing were things the echidnas alone had long before humans arrived, a fact that for some reason hadn't gotten around enough.

"...not to mention medicine, a security force (though granted, it's a little off the wall internally), a structured democracy, a monetary system-"

"Sonic, come off it. The Emerald radar is going off," said Tails. He pressed a few buttons on the small device, dodging some things in the system as he did so, and handed it back to Knuckles, who slipped off his glove to reveal vaguely-normal-looking clawed fingers. "Knuckles, keep track of the position for me, please? We have some very unfriendly-looking aircraft headed this way."

"Unfriendly aircraft?" The hedgehog looked around. Indeed there was a pair of light blue planes with downwards-pointing wings and a few small decals in bright red at the tips of the wing and tail, a patch of black on top of the nose and a sideways 'V' on the edge of the tip of the engines. On the side, underneath the protruding cockpit, was a red circle framed by a white one and what appeared to be a serial number. He whistled. "Wow. Know anything about them?"

"It looks like an old military craft," he said. "We'd better start moving quickly."

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Kaito frowned at the cup of tea and parfait in front of him. It wasn't that he wasn't hungry or anything, considering he'd just waited in a building for several hours knowing something would happen sooner or later. It wasn't that he was worried about what had just happened and that was putting him off. It wasn't even that he didn't trust Ai's kitchen skills, even if he could detect uneasiness about her being. In fact, it was simply the fact that he was having tea with a shrunken Kudou Shin'ichi, his neighbour, and his eerily-intelligent friend.

In other words, it was the amazing surrealism of the moment that stopped him from devouring the parfait.

Conan looked up from his own. "Oh, don't worry," he said. "There's goat-milk ice cream in yours, so if you're intolerant, there's nothing to worry about." When nothing happened, he frowned. "Are you alright, KID?" The others laid down their spoons.

"Yes, I'm fine," he replied. "It's just an unusual situation that's caught me off-guard. Nothing to worry about there." He smirked. "Though, tell me: I know you're very intelligent and have a lot of ability in reading people's faces. So why did you not think of that and instead wonder about my possible intolerance to lactose?"

The boy hesitated, almost unnoticeably... That is, for any normal human. Ai lowered her head.

"What's wrong, Edogawa-kun?" she asked. "You've been acting very oddly lately."

He spluttered, his face flushing pink. "I have _not_!" he growled, causing everybody's eyes to widen slightly. As far as Kaito knew, Conan didn't normally refer to himself as 'boku'; the kid was much the same as he was at school.

"Edogawa-kun, what's wrong?" Ai asked again, her voice more forceful, and Conan quickly buried himself into the tablecloth.

She looked up at Kaito, sighing. "Would you kindly leave for a second?" she asked, gesturing to the door. In this case, 'would you kindly' meant 'immediately'.

"I'm not stupid, you know," Kaito replied. "Something is wrong with tantei-kun and I would gladly like to find out what it is. After all, he's been so curious about me; I have every right to be curious about him. Besides, I still wish to talk with him."

"So this would be about that intruder just, wouldn't it?" the little girl answered, arms crossed as he stood up and wandered over around the table. "Agasa-hakase, didn't you see them?"

The old man himself was quite visibly still. "Haibara-kun, I don't think you'd want to-"

"_Tell me_."

Agasa gulped. "Well... they clearly weren't... human."

"What!?" Ai looked up at him. "Repeat that to me with a straight face."

"Haibara-san, the intruder in question – as in, the one who wasn't me – was a three-foot-tall rodent not unlike Mickey Mouse with purplish fur, a huge tail, a Stetson and a firearm," Kaito extended. "He attempted to fire upon tantei-kun, but ran when I shot my card-gun into the wall."

Ai's face was, for a moment, incredulous, with wide eyes and a gaping mouth. Her arms dropped to her side as she looked at Conan, who peered out of his protective bubble and, spotting the face, hid again.

She was blinking repeatedly as she spoke. "You... you're telling me that a giant purple _rat_ infiltrated Ku-Shin'ichi-nii-chan's previous home, fired upon Edogawa-kun, and was finally warded off when _you_ fired upon _him_..."

"Hence the purple fur tantei-kun handed to you. He wants you to check out what it was exactly using the DNA you can get out of the follicle." Kaito looked over at Conan. "Provided that when he so ceremoniously tore them from the kink in his tail, we pulled out the follicles."

"And neither of you thought to detain the specimen?" she enquired angrily, causing the phantom thief to go up into the air. "Or maybe take more physical evidence?"

The thief tipped his hat to her, reaching in his pocket in an attempt to grab his card gun. Not that he wanted to shoot a child, exactly; it was just a defence mechanism he had adapted long ago, since his old sniper had appeared on the scene. Snake was an incredibly sharp shot and one he didn't want to mess with on a monthly basis like he did with the police and his detective buddies. Right now, though, Ai seemed a lot more threatening than any of them.

And, of course, the expression on his face was ridiculously funny. "Excuse me? He fired! With a _Ruger_!"

"Luger?"

"No, Ruger. With an English 'r'. It's a brand of revolver. American. Very nice." Kaito frowned. "If it had been a Luger, we wouldn't be alive right now."

"I see," she mumbled. Of course, that was a complete lie; she couldn't have handled many firearms in her life, and hopefully not any. He didn't want to end up on her bad side, after all.

Kaito turned his attention to the little boy next. He definitely seemed off. Back in the neighbouring house he had been acting as if his old self was written down on a script and he was only following. Now that he was here, and once the question had popped up about his being unusually unassuming, he'd completely abandoned the pretence. It could have been that Ai's presence was the kind that discouraged lying of any sort but, even though she was sharp, she wasn't _that_ bad. "Anyway, tantei-kun?"

He lifted his head slightly.

"You said you required a word with me before our original interruption," he said. "About my heist last night."

Conan pushed himself up from the table stubbornly and slid down out of the seat. "Yeah. I need to know what the heist note meant."

Agasa raised an eyebrow. "You were sent a heist note?" he asked. "Did you tell anybody?"

Conan looked to the side bashfully. "From the meaning Shi-... _I_ got, it sounded like something I couldn't show Ran and Occhan," he replied.

"Could you have shown us?" Ai growled. A few hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

"I didn't know what to do with it," he replied. "_The forsaken child looks to the horizon, and sees a land beyond the abyss. Upon it, a glow promises dawn's return: Who shall claim that sunrise first?_ See?"

A few glares went Kaito's way... or they would have, if he had been there. Not even a trace of pink smoke remained. It was like he'd never been there in the first place.

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"Hello? ... Conan-kun's teacher, isn't it? ... He did what!? ... Amazing little-... I'm unable to pick him up; I'm currently working on a few witness statements from a few weeks past. I'm at the station right now. I could probably get somebody over, but I don't really have the time to go looking at the moment. Do you have my daughter Ran-chan's number? ... Yes? Good. I'm sorry about all this too. Alright... yes, goodbye."

Kogorou closed his mobile phone, frowning at the newspapers in front of him. "Can't believe the kid would just run off like that from school..."

The radio interrupted him – his horse had just crossed the finish line. Disgruntled, he wrote down the amount he'd lost on his notepad and totted up the numbers.

"...She's gonna kill me."

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"Hello, who is this? ... Oh? Hello, Kobayashi-sensei. What is it? ... What? ... Ai-chan as well? ... I'm sorry; I haven't seen either of them. I just dropped Conan-kun off this morning. You're saying they're not in school? ... You don't know? Oh, God... I'm sorry, I'm in school at the moment, but I'll see what I can do. Is that alright? Right, goodbye, Kobayashi-sensei." And with that, Ran pressed the red symbol, frowning at the bright screen of her own mobile.

"What is it, Ran-chan?" asked Suzuki Sonoko, crossing her arms.

"You didn't hear me just?" Ran mumbled, before straightening up. "Oh, um, Conan-kun disappeared during lunchtime and the teachers have only just found out now when class restarted."

"What!?" Sonoko exclaimed. "He just ran away!? Are those teachers even looking after those kids _properly_!?"

"I'm going to call Agasa-hakase. If need be, then tell sensei that I'll be out of school to go look for him." She fled the classroom almost as soon as they had walked in, startling the other teenage girl.

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Meanwhile, the Tornado was being wildly tossed about in an attempt to outmanoeuvre the Kawasaki T-4 jet planes. Tails pushed the controls forward, sending them downwards into a dive; the others followed slowly but carefully.

He cursed under his breath. "These guys are being extra careful!" he growled. "I'm going to have to slingshot them!"

"Now you're talking!" Sonic laughed, and secured his grip on the edge of the wing carefully. Tails pulled the plane back up level with the military planes and accelerated, shooting them forwards. Knuckles buried his head in-between his knees, praying for his life. Following behind, the two jets complied and increased their own speed just past the four-hundred miles-per-hour that their prey was barely struggling to up keep... only for the biplane to suddenly shoot directly upwards, confusing them. Tails flipped them over backwards and shot straight down before the two could follow them, pulling up just slightly above the largest buildings.

With a sigh, Knuckles unburied his head. "Thank God that's over."

"Not quite," Tails muttered. "If they're anything like GUN they'll just call in reinforcements. Let's get this over with."

Sonic pushed himself up, testing his foothold in the high speed. Miraculously the wind didn't knock him off.

He glanced down at the land below him. The settlements were incredible – the sheer size was unlike anything he'd ever seen of human colonies before. That meant a lot of them around, and a severe lack of other intelligent species to challenge them. Perhaps they were the only sentient race on this world; the boy had definitely been confused when seeing him and Knuckles. Sonic wondered if that had any hidden meanings in it... But still, Tails had been right. This place looked a lot like the pictured in the history books that the fox had collected in his spare time. If that had any hidden meaning behind it as well, he'd like to know.

What bugged him, though, was that this place seemed so... saturated. Sonic had lived in greenery for most of his life, and had only begun venturing outside of his island's protective bubble when Eggman had tried world domination for the first time. And even then, the colours had been incredibly bright, Eggman being a terrible interior designer despite his talent with robotics. It was only at night, and that one time of severe crisis a few months ago, that he'd been able to walk around without his eyes hurting at least a little.

But here, the grey was just... grey. Boring. Sleepy. He wondered how people lived here with such dullness in their lives.

The handheld in Knuckles' hand suddenly flashed. "Guys," he said slowly, "the Chaos Emerald's moved."

"What!?" The hedgehog edged along the wing carefully and looked down as Knuckles held the little monitor up. Indeed, the light that had previously been indicating directly up ahead had moved eastwards by several kilometres.

Tails reached back. "Oh, my God! I'm on it!" he cried, swerving wildly.

"Wait, Tails, is that at all safe!?" Knuckles yelled.

A tower of smoke answered him. All Sonic could do was sigh and play some dramatic music in his head.

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"I think I've done enough 'hinting at' today," Kaito mumbled, stretching his limbs and diving downstairs. He was stripped of his Kaitou KID uniform and currently wearing his weirdest shirt and a pair of mutilated jeans. "Best check there's not another one waiting in my house."

Of course, he didn't expect the huge crash outside. He blinked, peering out of his window.

The mostly-intact wreckage of a red biplane met his gaze. Part of the front rotor was buried into the grass of the back garden. A wing had snapped in two and a few pieces had flown into the wall of the house (from as best as he could see). Hanging out of the two seats were a pair of furry bodies, one a disturbingly familiar red and the other a golden-yellow colour... with _two bushy tails_. Panicking, he hurried outside to check out the damage.

As he stepped outside of the house, another lump caught his eye. It was spiky, large and inexplicably blue. Something flashed through his memory as he knelt down to take a closer look at it.

As soon as he reached out, said lump suddenly unfurled. He leapt back, staring, as it looked up and locked thin green eyes with his own blue, and proceeded to wave a white gloved-hand at him, a smirk curling in the corner of its peach -coloured muzzle.

"It's the kid!" it exclaimed in English, in a masculine voice. "How are you, there?"

All Kaito found himself to be able to do at the moment was to stare blankly at the creature. 'He' – if it was a 'he'; after all, he'd been fooled before – was three foot tall, with extraordinarily bright blue fur, long flesh spines hanging down from the back of his head and sticking out from his shoulder blades, and pointed feline ears. He had a beanlike nose standing up on the end of a flat muzzle, and large eyes that seemed to be on the same eyeball, which somehow did not look particularly jarring. He had a large head and a thin body like the purple rat from earlier and the pair currently unconscious in the wreckage behind him, and upon his feet was a pair of shiny red buckled shoes. He was currently standing there with a hand held out, as if expecting him to shake.

So he did. And a moment of panic was resumed when he took the creature's hand and he suddenly realised with the touch of the nylon on his hand that this was actually happening and the surreal events of the day weren't a dream.

It had certainly felt like that: tea-time with little, out-of-character Conan; a civil conversation with Hakuba; a red gem that transported him wherever he wanted to go with only a minimal margin of error; a little girl who acted like an adult; and a giant purple rat with a Ruger who snuck into the Kudou household and fled from a shot of Kaito's card gun. And not all in that order, not that order changed a thing. And now a plane had crashed in his back garden.

"This is going to be a _very_ long day," he muttered in disbelief.

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A/N: Indeed it shall be. There are several events to get out of the way that all happen on the same day. I feel sorry for Kaito - with all these things happening one after the other, who's to say he'll be the same boy at the end?


	13. Collisions Causing Reactions

He'd finally gotten about a mile away from the house when he stopped dead in his tracks somewhere in the middle of a small street by an apartment complex and bent over to breathe.

Well, hadn't _that_ been interesting.

A small child digging a football into a wall with a single kick. Now that had been impressive. Then again, hadn't he adjusted some device on his shoes before doing so? It was possible that those shoes had done something to power-up his feet; he'd seen many devices of that type before. In fact, he was pretty sure he'd actually seen those particular shoes before, something which confused him greatly. Hadn't he only just met that boy for the first time? Because he was very sure they'd cross paths again, somehow.

He hadn't expected the assailant at the last minute, he had to hand him that. Or her. His sister happened to be a rather confident shot herself. And in his line of work, one did underestimate the abilities of the opposite gender.

Did he have a sister? Now that didn't seem right... and what line of work was this again? Something that involved a gun, otherwise he wouldn't be carrying one around. Huh… strange.

The card that had dug itself into the wall next to him, however, screamed familiarity at him. He looked down at the small slash-like mark on his right glove. Maybe... like the shoes, somebody had already used it on him before?

Now that was just serving to confuse him even more!

Growling, he clutched his head and made his way through the alley… only to bump into two very tall, very intimidating humans. He glanced over the pair. They both wore dark clothes and hats, but that was the most he could tell from glancing their backs. They had been talking to one another, but not anymore.

The taller one, who seemed more of a leader, turned around, looked down and stared at him with a scrutinizing eye. His partner looked down after a second of confusion. The older one started talking in that completely unintelligible language of this place, followed by his accomplice. He watched the two of them intently, waiting for anything. Eventually the older reached down to shoe him off – and was met by a sharp fang digging into his hand. He wasn't ready to be batted aside just yet!

The man pulled his hand back, the other taking a communication device similar to the walkie-talkie earlier from the inside of his trench-coat. Was this the default reaction to something that confused this species? Calling somebody to talk all about it? If so, it was an awkward response. Most people would just draw back and observe from a distance where he came from.

He dialled in a number loudly and said something in a much different tone to the law-enforcement officer before. Meanwhile, the other one seemed to be-

Before the alien knew it, he was knocked out by a particularly heavy iron pipe.

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"So, kid, what's your name?" asked the blue creature, completely oblivious to the wreckage behind him.

Kaito just stared. "Shouldn't you be…" he dragged off in English that was a little worse than normal, pointing behind him. The thing turned back, eyes suddenly widening as he sped over in a brief gust of dirt to the yellow one bent over the side of the crashed plane. He placed his fingers to the animal's temple, then to its chest, and looked up with a big grin. It must have been okay. Then he moved on the red one Kaito vaguely recognised, moving a lot more carefully around it. Maybe this was due to a different gender? As far as Kaito could tell, the blue one was male, moved easily around one and not-so-easily around the other; probably the yellow one was female and the red one was male. It sounded likely when he remembered all his old cartoons. That and the fleshy appendages on the heads didn't appear to be anything to go by.

This second check proved positive as well, and finally the little guy looked back up, gesturing with his hand. The human stiffened.

"Hmm?" He tried again. "Come on, help me out here!" he asked. "I can't pick up these guys by myself, you know."

"A-ahh." Kaito walked over and, suddenly afraid to pick up the right one, looked towards both of them. The yellow one looked to have a smaller frame, and lighter than the red one, who was thick-limbed and particularly barrel-chested considering the build of the other two. He shrugged, picking up the red one underneath the arms to get a better look at him.

He nearly dropped him. It was the same one on that island during the heist!

The blue one, appropriating his hold on his yellow companion, looked up. "Oh, that's Knuckles. You've met him before," he said cheerfully. "Of course, then Eggman got to you… And that's when I came in!" Before Kaito could ask for an explanation, the alien then walked towards the house.

Kaito looked back at Knuckles. Yep, this was the same thing he'd seen on the Angel Island on the other side of the anomaly. It was the same size, shape… and, he guessed, weight. He was glad he'd chosen to pick up this one rather than the other one (a kitsune, maybe? It was some kind of fox monster); the blue one might not have been able to hold him up!

And yes, he was well aware that he was currently holding up and talking about an alien. To be honest, he was suppressing all of his internal shock. He'd probably faint later from all of it, but it wouldn't be the worst shock he'd ever had. Nope, that one had come a long time ago. He'd be ready for it when it came.

Dragging Knuckles inside, he found the blue one had already seated himself at the table, with his friend lying down on the table. The thing nodded its head.

"It's alright if I put Tails here, isn't it?" he said.

"Yes, it's completely fine," Kaito found himself saying. "By the way, what _are_ you, anyway?"

He tipped his head. "Is this your normal speaking language?" he asked. "You look like the humans near where I live. They're a bit different from the other ones. They don't all speak English like the rest of them, and most of them like to abide to their own traditions."

Kaito smirked. "I always thought my English was good," he muttered.

"You said the word 'the' kinda funny," the creature responded. "Oh, and my name's Sonic. Sonic the hedgehog. Pleasure to meet you!"

Kaito frowned at that one. "You don't look like any hedgehog I've ever seen in my lifetime," he replied. "Hedgehogs are small spiny creatures that snuffle around and eat bugs. And none of them have blue fur."

The newly-recognised Sonic sighed. "So you really don't have any of us here, huh?" he muttered. "This really is a blast from the past. Let me explain it a bit better.

"I'm from the planet Mobius. About three-hundred years ago, a bunch of aliens from another planet called humans discovered the existence of our world a long distance from theirs. The weird thing about it was that both of our planets are surrounded by rifts in space, and if somebody flew into one of them they'd end up on the other side at the other world. Humans learned to use this to their advantage and travelled to our world where they discovered our species."

"Did the humans only find out about the hedgehogs?" Kaito asked, confused. The term species was slightly ambiguous, after all.

Sonic shook his head. "Nope. They found out about all of us. Hedgehogs are only a single breed. Tails and Knuckles next to us are different breeds, for example."

Kaito smirked. What _very_ appropriate names. Then again, he mused, he should think about himself sometimes.

The 'hedgehog' gripped his knees, bowing his head slightly. "Don't ask me, it's all due to our freaky genetics."

He looked back up again. "Humans found us and tried gauging what we were for a long while. We were a quite primitive race back then. We didn't even have a language developed, so we couldn't communicate. The history books I have at home tell me more. Scientists did tests on a few of us to learn more about us. Sometimes we turned up on an autopsy table, although they tell me that was a stereotype they wanted to avoid. Something about old movies... Some of us even got enslaved and forced to work for them, but when we learned that they did it to their own species a very long time ago, we didn't really mind that so much. I mean, you treat your own people that way, it can't be all that bad, right?" Sonic winked at him.

"Eventually, though, they began teaching us everything we didn't already know. And we got to learn about different earth animals... a lot of which we decided we looked like. Different breeds decided to name themselves after other species. That's why I'm a hedgehog. Long limbs, spikes, ability to roll into a ball, pointy ears... Knuckles' species was named by the humans; he's an echidna, named for his breed's long existence, not to mention if you flip him on his face, his spines go into the right shape." He grinned cheekily. "And Tails is a fox because of the way his tail looks, his decent eyesight in the night-time and the shape of his ears and his muzzle is quite long for a Mobian, come to think of it."

"So what else is it you need to know?"

Kaito looked over at the wreckage outside, trying to think. "Why are you over here?"

"The jewel that I told you to snag the last time was a Chaos Emerald, remember?" Sonic tapped the table, eyes rolling upwards as he tried to think. "I assume you do; I mean, Knuckles did mention that you already knew what they were when you met him on Angel Island."

"I did; you did a mighty fine job of an exposition speech on the video I swiped from the military network," Kaito replied. "It's the whole reason I came there in the first place – to steal a Kaosu Emerald."

The hedgehog relaxed in his seat somewhat, then tensed as a groaning came from next to them. Knuckles was stirring.

The echidna pushed himself up from the table, dizzy from the crash, and immediately glared at Kaito. "You. Give me back the Chaos Emerald you stole!" he growled in what was meant to be a menacing tone. It didn't help that he was small, considerably lithe compared to Kaito and large-headed. Of course, then Kaito remembered how he'd ploughed through the ground the previous day, and decided not to infuriate him.

"Knuckles, calm down," Sonic replied, although a bit of a scowl was leaking through his smirk. "I'm trying to explain everything to him so he can explain everything to me so we can get the Chaos Emerald back so we can get out of here faster, if that's what you so want. Understand?"

Knuckles huffed. "We'd do it even faster if he just surrendered the Emerald to us right now!" He dropped down from the table carefully and took some menacing steps towards the young thief, who stood up and backed off.

Sonic sighed at him, and looked up at their host. "I'm sorry about this, kid," he said. "Oh, by the way, what's your name? I forgot to ask."

Kaito fell into a brief silence, before bowing forward to both of them. "My name is Kuroba Kaito," he said. "And I still require that Kaosu Emerald."

"WHAT!?" screamed Knuckles, flinging a fist at the boy. Kaito dodged quickly, only to have his attacker run into a wall once more... except this wasn't as much a wall as it was a washing machine. Thankfully, only his head collided with it and he fell over backwards, missing any opportunity to deal excessive damage to the kitchen appliance. There was still a small dent, but that was explainable.

And then Kaito suddenly remembered about the absolutely massive 'dent' in the garden outside. "What am I going to tell my mother?" he asked aloud. There was no way he was going to be able to make up an excuse for a bloody aeroplane in... how long did he have?

Sonic rested his chin in his right hand, leaning against the table. "...I'd tell her the truth, considering that without a plane, we'll need somewhere to stop while Tails fixes it up," he said, nodding. "Plus, if we were to do that, you can take care of what you wanted to take care of with the Chaos Emerald and then we can go back home. Hey, do you think she'll take it well?"

"Knowing my mother," Kaito replied, "if it hurts her, she'll never tell me."

MKMKMKMKMK

The streets outside were packed to the brim, and for Mouri Ran it was no easy task trying to get around looking for Conan. He was an incredibly small boy, and Beika was on the edge of the Kanto and Haido regions, meaning a lot of people were on the roads and the footpaths in the middle of the day. Not crowded, but there were definitely enough that it was going to be hard to find him, even if he stood still wearing bright yellow. It was even worse that he was moving, too, because while Conan did not have completely excessive energy like his friends, he still ran much faster than most. If he did things right and conserved his energy, Ran would never catch up to him.

She'd finally gotten the police on the phone (it seemed her father wasn't starting a citywide search like Ms Kobayashi had been made to believe) and waited at the zebra crossing, phone pressed hard to her ear as she tried to hear the other end above all else. Forget all those health classes telling her that mobile phone radiation shrunk cells; this was important contact with the police in a time of need.

Of course, the entire experience was unsettling. Conan had never run away from anything before. Not when exposed to several dead bodies in the course of a week. Not when people pulled out guns. Not even when buildings burned down around him – Conan was the kind of superhero who ran _into_ fires to save people. Compared to all that, school was a tiny blip on the radar. He may have been bored in class according to Ms Kobayashi at the last parent-teacher conference, but that was only due to his intelligence.

One of the things that Ms Kobayashi had suggested, however, was that Conan be tested by a child psychologist. A few of Conan's personality traits were in line with some mental disorders. He was extremely intelligent but not entirely social, spent classes in which his boredom took over doing something else to keep his interest, he did have a sort of OCD in which some things had to go in the correct order (books, videos, nothing too excessive, although a line of coloured pencils out of spectrum order did cause a small sound out of his throat). Coupled with some of the things Ran experienced with him – the boy never really said what he was thinking, complete inability with music and had that amazing sense of self around mutilated corpses – that was enough to put him the Aspergic category.

Of course, he did have his differences. Conan was good with humour, good with people and talented at sports. But that was about it. The major problem with this was that he might be being bullied at school for his differences. Maybe he'd chosen to run away to get away from them? It was distinctly possible.

Megure was suddenly introduced to the phone. "Yes, keibu?" she asked, surprised. She didn't want to believe in the worst, but... "Where's Conan-kun? Have you seen him anywhere?"

"_About twenty minutes ago, actually, before he suddenly ran off_," the man replied. "_Takagi-kun told me he ran in the direction of Shin'ichi-kun's house. He might be headed for Agasa-hakase's, though there is the problem that..._"

"That _what_!?" Ran found herself yelling down the phone, causing some stares from the rest of the people on the street.

"_Well, Conan-kun was running after the gunman that shot Takagi-kun in the hand, although Takagi-kun swears it was actually a giant purple rat, as do many of the witnesses who saw him get shot. Apparently he ran down that way..._"

Ran cancelled the call and closed the mobile, wheeling around in the middle of the street. Please don't be... Conan!

The boy, she had figured out long ago, was a bit of a danger magnet. That's what he was. Wherever Conan went, something bad happened. Usually there was a murder or something similar. Death chased him around like a stalker with a crush. Though originally, the original consensus had been that it was her father's incredible bad luck (or good look; he did get paid with each solved case) that caused all the misfortune in Beika, Ran had decided it was Conan with much deliberation. After all, murders happened around him when he was with anybody, not specifically Kogorou. It worked the other way around, too; murder was a big reason for him to get up and move. If there was a mystery around, he was naturally attracted to it.

The behaviour really reminded her of Shin'ichi some days. That teenager's mere presence seemed to cause the fire to burn brightly in most killers' souls. Maybe it was merely his luck as a detective or something. But mystery just happened to be his passion. It wasn't a normal way to act; then again, Shin'ichi_ had_ mentioned several things a long time ago about a story in the _Sherlock Holmes_ canon where the only cure for Holmes' sickness during the tale was a murder in Reigate. And Holmes had also been Shin'ichi's passion, the stories being the only consistent subject he ever talked about.

Conan appeared to take after Shin'ichi a lot. Maybe it was just the incredible resemblance between him and Shin'ichi at age six (Conan's growth was significantly stunted for no particular reason) that had caused it, but they acted identical. Running after the murderer right now, for example, was something Shin'ichi would have done just as quickly as Conan had done. There was also his speech pattern when he thought that Ran couldn't hear him; it was the same brash tone as Shin'ichi's. She reckoned that he probably copied it off the many phone calls that he told them he received from him when he'd lived at his original house, before his parents had ended up in that car accident and landed in hospital.

That had been rather strange, considering that Shin'ichi had never called Conan in front of her, or mentioned the kid at all. Shin'ichi only phoned nowadays to talk to her, not Conan. And the frequency at which they apparently spoke to each other didn't match with the frequency at which windows of opportunity – being days when Sonoko had called her out for a shopping date or a movie or something that Conan wasn't allowed to go to – cropped up.

She'd caught Conan reading _The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes_ the other day. When she'd asked the origin of the book, the boy had looked up at her with a look of faint surprise. Shin'ichi had sent it him through the mail, he'd said. He'd left no return address.

Convenient, much?

Ran's feet managed to carry her to Niichoume, and she finally slowed down a few doors away from Agasa and Shin'ichi's houses. The gate to Shin'ichi's was hanging open, the door opened just a crack. Her breath caught in her throat. Why...?

Shaking her head – he was going to be alright – she walked over and knocked on Agasa's front door. It opened, revealing a very timid-looking Conan who seemed to have expected her coming. He was alright...

He was alright! "Conan," she said, collapsing on her knees and wrapping her arms around him, "don't you ever do that again!"

* * *

A/N: Asperger's Syndrome is a mental disorder on the edge of the autistic spectrum. It is characterised by a lot of disabilities concerning communication and social interaction, as well as ritualistic behaviour and a minor case of OCD. Whereas Shin'ichi wouldn't be Aspergic, this Conan could be seen as such. This is mainly because I actually suffer from the same disorder.

_The Reigate Squire_ also happens to be my favourite story in the canon, as shown before in 'What If?'.


	14. Dramatic Realisation

Of course, Kaito's mother did return home later that afternoon and discover the strange cartoon animals sitting around her kitchen table and eating the sushi from her fridge (according to Sonic, he'd never eaten much human food before due to differing diets of the species) with her son looking on rather contently and clutching that red gem that seemed so oddly important. The only thing she did when she came home, however, was smile, ask their names, and then steer Kaito away to inquire just what was going on in the calmest voice she could muster.

Kaito of course replied that they were from another world, something he didn't want to lie about, and that they were looking for the red gem he now had in his possession. However, he had told them that he needed to use it to help a friend of his; with the most amazing luck Sonic had gotten Knuckles to accept it. Sure, this wasn't getting the Chaos Emerald back, but it was a compromise as Kaito still required it. He didn't tell the reason why to his mother.

That was because the reason why was a bit crazy.

After talking a little more with Sonic, he'd discovered the more extreme side of the Chaos Emeralds – they were little more than objects of amazing power that allowed most Mobians to do incredible things. That was most likely due to the species' size and part of their genetic build-up. Not that the humans were barred from similar effects if they tried hard enough. Kaito already knew that they had quite the strength due to the video feed on the military website, but he certainly hadn't expected any of this to come up. Because according to Sonic, the power could result in some of the more mundane things happening much more quickly. Such as human cell division.

And remember the heist note earlier?

Bingo. Kaito wanted to help his tantei-kun.

He remembered the first time he'd ever seen Kudou Shin'ichi – a proud and honestly electric individual, with sharp sapphire eyes and a sharper mind. Kudou had been the man trying to stop him at the clock tower while he attempted to defend it. Every move Kaito made was in vain that night. Kudou had been able to see through his every manoeuvre and was able to direct the police in his way every single time. That is, until a short while later, when he made his departure. For some reason, no decent move was made against him near the end of the heist, despite the amazing view Kudou had from his helicopter with the small handgun aimed in his face. Kaito's only guess was that Kudou had figured out the reason for the heist in the first place; that being to defend his memories with his childhood friend Aoko.

A while after that, Kudou disappeared in a figurative puff of smoke. None of the newspapers covered it, but it was on the tongues of the majority of students in Ekoda High School who knew friends of friends of friends... and so on, in Teitan High School where Kudou attended. Most of the people who heard it from them denied it as a stupid rumour. But as the weeks followed, Kudou's name stopped showing up in the papers and news of the _new_ detective in town, Mouri Kogorou, replaced most instances of his name. The new favourite, the man who solved crime in his sleep, literally. So the rumours were maintained. There was the odd admittance that maybe he was just resting or on holiday. These admittances, however, were eventually disproved when no news turned up for several months, and the rumour was still popular.

But then Kaito had met a strange young boy on the heist he'd planned those several months before after the clock tower heist. The strange boy who had the exact same stare as Kudou, and was also standing in his way just like him, was sitting on top of a building sending up a firework to notify the police of his position while they fled in another direction after a false clue. Of all the weird things, said child even had a similar face to Kudou. Kaito had excused it as his being related to Kudou, or trying to imitate him. Maybe it was simply a stroke of luck. It was possible, after all. But the following night, the kid had been able to find him again after he disguised as his pretty little carer Ran, despite the fact that everybody else had been fooled, even her own father. Maybe it was just something that kid realised?

No. The real shock came even later, when he disguised himself to go to a meeting with some members of a forum he was popular at. The little boy came over with Ran. He crossed a burning rope bridge to get to her when he found out about the death of another member of the forum who was meant to be there. And he solved the murder that happened in that little house in the snow all by himself, performing an expert charade as the Suzuki girl's voice using a little device hidden in his bowtie to change his voice (a _bowtie_. He'd heard of microphones hidden in ties but this just took it to the extreme).

Kaito had been horrified at the killing – what if one of Snake's friends had discovered him and was taking pot-shots at him? But the little boy had uncovered that it wasn't them; in fact, it was simply another member of the forum who had gotten angry and decided that the best course was killing the source of aggravation. And Kaito had been forced to open his eyes and realise that this little boy _had_ worked out everything that first night.

And done it exactly like Kudou at the clock tower.

He'd been scared when he'd thought of it. Things like that did not happen in the real world. People did not simply shrink down to half their height, after all! So maybe Kudou was acting as a force behind the kid? No, that boy, Edogawa Conan, had not made any phone calls and, besides, the landlines were dead that night. An even more amazing theory came into his head. Maybe this boy was the force behind Kudou? Probably, probably not – Kudou had been on a walkie-talkie talking to police the entire night in Ekoda, not switching off that channel, and there certainly was no small boy in the helicopter when he'd looked. Was it even possible for a human to shrink?

So he kept watch over the next few heists that the boy appeared, trying to assure himself that he just wasn't thinking straight and that the kid maybe was getting advice from Kudou or something. But the boy had no advice; everybody was helping the detective, not him. Meaning it was his own brainpower driving it. Eventually, Kaito had had to bring up the subject with Jii, and the response hadn't been favourable.

"Who knows if it's possible and if it isn't?" he'd said. "Modern science could possibly try it. I may know as much about it as you, but I believe that somebody may have found a way to do so."

So he continued to watch the boy. Finally he got his answer.

They were after the same people.

MKMKMKMKMK

The following week was calm for Kaito. Sonic, Tails and Knuckles were polite-enough houseguests. They didn't mind sharing the guest room and certainly wanted to help out around the house. Heck, even Knuckles was alright after staying for a little while. Sonic had explained that Knuckles' life was naturally quite rough since he lived alone on an island with only improvised shelter, and so maybe the comfort of having a mattress, a carpet and food available several times a day was getting to him. It didn't explain the full change of heart, but it explained some of it at least.

However, the same week was not so pleasant for Conan and Ran on the other side of Tokyo. As the days went by, Conan's personality change become worse and worse as he retreated within himself, until he refused to come out of the house in case something happened. Whereas before he had been just a little fearful of everybody around him, now he had been driven inside his room, only coming out for food and maybe to read some of the newspapers for information on the KID. Ran noticed the change almost immediately, since Conan had never been extremely childish before unless he wanted something really badly and was willing to annoy everybody in order to get it. Even Kogorou knew something was going on, and he hardly ever paid attention to the boy.

They had no idea what was going on. Conan had always been particularly friendly and outgoing before. Sure, there were always problems, as mentioned before: not bonding with others too easily, a slight nosiness that turned him into an annoyance, a certain problem with walking away from Ran unless the suspect of the week was running off in another direction and he was sure that there wasn't an accomplice ready to slit her throat when he wasn't looking...

Ran blamed whatever incident had caused him to run away. It was the only thing that she could blame.

Eventually, though, one Thursday that Ran had taken off-school to look after Conan – sickness was a grand excuse, and all she had to say over the phone was that Conan had caught a huge and debilitating cold over the weekend – the boy did venture out, and was currently helping her in the kitchen. He was acting remarkably shy, but considering how bad it had been just the other day, this was certainly an improvement.

That was when somebody knocked on the door. Surprised, Ran put down the wooden spoon that she was using to stir the mixture (she had decided fairy cakes a good way to wake him up). She walked out through the office and opened the door.

Before her stood a young man with tussled golden hair and sharp brown eyes. He was fair-skinned, and his eyes were oddly wide. He was also very tall, about half-a-head to a head taller than her.

"Excuse me," he said, his Japanese very polite. "I was just wondering if I could see Mouri Kogorou-san?"

She scanned him over. After what had happened last week she could never be too careful anymore. "You're... Hakuba Saguru-kun, aren't you?" she guessed. "We've met before. The last time was at the High School Detective Koshien, wasn't it?"

"...Oh! Sorry, sorry..." he mumbled, embarrassed. "Yes, we have met before. Then again... how could I forget those meetings...?" He rubbed his brow, and then looked back down at her. "Anyway, is Mouri-san in?"

"I'm afraid not," the young girl said. "Otou-san left earlier this morning after a phone call. Many clients aren't visiting this place anymore. I wish they would; it might help us warm Conan-kun up to other people again."

The news seemed to take Hakuba by surprise. "Something's wrong with Conan?"

"Ever since last week he's turned very... introverted," she replied. "Today is the first time I've gotten him out of his bedroom for a period other than lunch and supper, and even then it's only cooking."

"Interesting..."

"Anyway, why did you come here?" Ran said, inviting him in. He complied, walking in and settling down on one of the green sofas, shedding his large overcoat. Ran noted the Inverness that he was wearing, and the black school uniform underneath it. He was taking time from school to come here. Not to mention the fact that he sat on the very edge of the sofa. Not exactly settling, really. More like perching, like a bird or a cat waiting to pounce on its prey. It was an important bit of body language you had to recognise when you were the daughter of a detective. It meant the case must have been very important.

"I've been going around the different police detectives trying to find out which one of them is known as 'tantei-kun'," he answered, his voice not quite as pleasant and relaxed as earlier. "Unfortunately, I've yet to have actually found the man. Then I heard that the phrase is thrown about quite a bit when it's Mouri-san there, so I was just wondering."

Ran frowned. "This is because of Kaitou KID, isn't it?"

"Indeed it is," the blond teenage detective replied. "The thief visited me the morning after the last heist-"

"He was okay!? But the police never reported him coming back!"

"Don't worry, they have the message," he replied. _Although I had to wait until I could secure the contents of that video file from them without looking suspect._ "He mentioned how somebody named 'tantei-kun' was the only other person he'd trust with the events of the heist, and then fled when I bothered to ask. I don't know where he disappeared to after that, but it had me wondering just who he was talking about. So I've been asking around to see if he's taken a shine to any other detectives in the city.

"I see," Ran replied. "Would you like some tea? I was also making cakes, so if I could finish... Then we can call otou-san and see if he knows anything." With a nod from the young man, she stood up and left the room.

She walked back into the kitchen to see Conan's face as he stood near the door. Curiosity had overtaken his shyness and he had decided to listen in, it seemed. She smiled down at him.

"It's Hakuba Saguru-kun," she said. "He's here about something Kaitou KID mentioned to him." At once, Conan's old sharp face seemed to return, his posture straightening out. "...That's right, before what happened last week you were very agitated about what Kaitou KID was doing, weren't you?"

"What happened?" Conan asked shakily.

"Kaitou KID said that the only two people who should know what happened on that heist were Hakuba-kun and somebody named 'tantei-kun'," she said. She turned to the cake mix and started stirring again. "So he's been looking to find anybody who goes by that nickname. He's waiting out in the office. Is that okay?"

"...I suppose..."

She smiled. At least he was answering her. "I've heard from the police station that Hakuba-kun is very interested in _Sherlock Holmes_ stories as well. Maybe you two could talk with each other about it."

The small boy looked up at her oddly, then at the door. Slowly and carefully, he opened it just a bit and finally screwed up the courage to go through.

MKMKMKMKMK

_Very good_, said the voice in his head, now faint. _You can do this, Conan-kun._

Ever since last week, he'd thought Shin'ichi had been growing stronger. Sure, his voice had grown much louder after Kaitou KID's appearance. Hence why he'd been quiet that day. It was Shin'ichi just trying to make him screw up the courage to talk. And it had still been quite powerful afterwards. He'd felt better. There were even times when Shin'ichi was in control and Conan took the virtual backseat.

Then he began fading away.

At once, Conan began to see the world on his own, without anybody there to guide him through. Nobody else knew what was happening. Okay, sure, the phone calls from Ai had hinted that she might have realised something was going on deep within his psyche, but what was clearly a mystery to her. For example, she'd been asking him to come over without Ran's knowledge. How on earth did she think he could look after himself on the street like that? He was only... how old?

Two. Just two measly years of existence. He knew he'd taken to life a lot faster than others, understanding how a lot of things worked better, but it was Shin'ichi who had taught him all of that. The teenager had once been his life. Now he was simply a fading ghost unable to move from the armchair that was slowly rotting away, while Conan had to fish through the steadily-decreasing books for himself. All the knowledge in the world was disappearing from his head because Shin'ichi was...

Was...

"Hello?" Conan looked up into the eyes of the half-English detective ahead of him. "Is that Conan-kun?"

The boy racked his brain for anything that might remind him who this was again... Hakuba. Hakuba Saguru, only a little older than Shin'ichi was. He was a special consultant who originally offered service to Scotland Yard, but was brought over by his father to help Ekoda's Kaitou KID Task Force. He happened to be an expert on all things KID-related. Right, Ran had said earlier... Shin'ichi had met him some times. They had first met at an old mansion, where all the detectives had turned on and killed each other. It had actually been Shin'ichi's plan, to trick the murderer into thinking their trick was working. Then, there was the Detective Koshien, where they'd also collided. Hakuba was also clutching that _Sherlock Holmes_ book of his. He had his thumb in the pages.

He smiled meekly. "Good morning, Hakuba-nii-chan," he mumbled.

"It's very good to see you again," Hakuba replied. He was speaking like he was talking to an idiot. Well, he was talking to a child. Idiot and child were two different things. Perhaps he was just out of practice at talking to a child. And either way was rather a low blow to Conan and Shin'ichi combined. "And it's especially good to have you talking to somebody. Mouri-chan says you've been having some social troubles recently."

...She mentioned that?

"She said something about you looking for a 'tantei-kun'," Conan said.

Hakuba looked as if he had been caught off-guard by that statement. He knelt down and crossed his arms. "That's correct," said Hakuba. "I've come to ask Mouri-san if maybe he knows anybody who might be called 'tantei-kun'. But it's a nickname that was given to them by Kaitou KID, so I don't know if I'll ever find them. After all, his perception of who is a threat and who is a friend has always been very subjective." The ainoko gulped visibly. "And it can be switched around at any moment."

Conan glanced over at the door to the kitchen. Ran was there... probably listening in on the conversation. He couldn't say anything to Hakuba while she was there.

_We know who tantei-kun is, Conan-kun_, said Shin'ichi. _We need to tell him. After all, there's no way to get us out of this, and if anybody's kept out of a loop involving KID then there's going to be a lot of confusion._

"Conan-kun?"

He looked up. The other teenage detective was giving him a very worried look. The smile had drained from his face, and his eyes seemed darker than before.

"Something happened a week ago according to your onee-chan," Hakuba said, still applying the odd speech patterns, "and you apparently changed a lot. Would you mind telling me what happened exactly?"

_Kaitou KID started this mess and let Hakuba-kun into the loop deliberately. That means we're allowed to let him know what happened, since that day and the heist seem to be interrelated._

The little boy nodded slightly. That was right. Kaitou KID was at the heart of all of this. A master phantom thief who had probably confused the entire situation even more by just visiting Shin'ichi's house a week ago. Conan knew that there was no reason for him to have been there on that day. Kaitou KID wasn't even supposed to know that he and Shin'ichi were basically the same person (or, by now, living in the same head at the very least). And yet he had been found in the deserted building, saving his life from a weird monster with a Ruger pistol that didn't distinguish between a threat, the police and a small child, who had also invaded his house for no particular reason except for shelter.

He sighed. "Hakuba-nii-chan. Tantei-kun... is me."

The teenage detective stuttered, eyes wide. "W-w-what?"

"I said, Kaitou KID calls me tantei-kun," Conan said again, more clearly. "He has since the second time we bumped into each other."

Suddenly, Ran stumbled into the room with some tea. "The cakes will be out in a few minutes if you'd like some," she said. Hakuba blinked, and took the cup, still in shock.

* * *

A/N: Hakuba re-enters the fray, finally. And poor little Conan... once wonders if he'll ever be back to his old self, ne?


	15. An Unclear Mind

He'd never expected this to happen, Hakuba mused to himself as he ate the lovely cake that Ran had made. This was all very... interesting? Was that even the word to use for it? He supposed so; after all, it wasn't everyday you had tea and cake with the daughter of another famous detective. Not to mention finding out Kaitou KID's 'tantei-kun' was actually the little boy who lived with them.

And that worried him. 'Tantei-kun' was not anybody with a particularly large connection to Kaitou KID. 'Tantei-kun' was not any official or unofficial police detective. 'Tantei-kun' was not even anybody over ten years of age. 'Tantei-kun' was an eight-year-old boy, very much on the short side, with much too large a head for anybody of that age to even be able to hold up, and who was currently in the middle of a mental and emotional breakdown from whatever had happened a week earlier.

Just how had these two bumped into each other, again?

"Conan-kun?" he asked, frowning at him. "Can I just ask you one thing?"

The little boy looked up at him. He had his own mouth clamped around a humorously massive cake, looking for all the world like a wide-eyed puppy caught eating a slipper. Okay, it was a strawberry-frosted slipper that looked tastier than a regular slipper, but thinking that really ruined the simile.

"I have this incredible urge to know," Hakuba said as he stirred the tea in his cup, "and Mouri-chan hasn't yet told me, since I've not asked yet... What is it you actually saw last week that stopped you from exiting the house?"

Conan fell silent again. The teenage detective tipped his head, confused. Something so traumatising he wouldn't talk about it anyway, or was it that somebody who shouldn't know was in the room?

And was it Ran or him that didn't deserve to be told?

However, it did seem Ran was willing to supply an answer. "He ran away from school last week for some reason," she said. "Apparently, he managed to run into the police at the scene of a crime. Somebody had shot at a patrolling officer – Conan-kun heard the rumours about the criminal and went running after him. I guess Agasa-hakase, who lived on the man's path, must have spotted him before too long... but I'm sure something else must have happened."

Hakuba frowned. "What day exactly did this happen?"

When he heard the date he froze. It had been the exact day after the heist. The day Kaitou KID had visited him. Why had Ran neglected to mention it?

"What did you see of the criminal, Conan-kun?" he asked. If this was KID in disguise deliberately trying to work up a young child, he'd kill him where he stood. That is, if he wasn't so bloody difficult to get a hold of in the first place. Sure, when this KID had started, things weren't as regular, but at least back then he wasn't using ridiculous tricks to grab attention and lose the police in the crowd. He was completely betraying the idea of being a phantom thief – the quiet, ghostlike Robin Hood that appeared in so many stories in Europe and Japan. Then again, somebody had to be an exception to the rule.

"Conan-kun wouldn't tell me," Ran replied. "But I can tell you what the witnesses of the shooting saw."

"There were witnesses?"

"An entire street's worth," the girl replied. "Unfortunately, their testimony is rather unusual and I'm not sure if I should trust what the police said about it… They told me that the shooter was some large purple rat." There was a long pause. The teenager looked over at Conan, who was looking down at his feet for some reason. "Like I said, it's not exactly a reliable statement."

"Did they give you a further description?" Hakuba enquired, raising an eyebrow.

She nodded. "Eventually, yes. I called them again about five days ago to see if they had further information. They told me that they had gotten a better idea of what everybody seemed to have seen. One of the witnesses spun a very poetic description of the creature. They said it had a large head, feet and hands, thin limbs and a long white muzzle, and was wearing shoes and a Stetson hat. They also said that it was three-foot-tall and ran away at high speed. It matched up with the officer, Takagi-keiji's memories of the shooter, not to mention what everybody else saw. I'm very worried. In fact, I might be beginning to wonder if maybe it actually did look like that, seeing as there was nobody there who saw anything different."

What was it that KID had told him about the aliens he had seen? _"The aliens were... unique, to put it in the best way. They were bipedal, had brightly-coloured fur, and had an unusually large skull, to put it in the most literal."_ Now, Hakuba was certainly not an idiot. The creature she had just described had several parallels with Kaitou KID's own account. He'd be willing to bet that they were the same species, if it hadn't been one of the creatures that KID had actually seen first-hand.

He stood up, bowing slightly but not managing very well. "Well, if you'd excuse me, I'd best be off. Must keep lo-"

Something had grabbed his trouser leg. He looked down for a surprise – somehow Conan had managed to slip through their sights and was now holding onto his trousers with a tight fist.

He blinked. "Conan-kun, what is it?"

"Can I go with you?" he asked. "I want to - to help."

Hakuba glanced up at Ran, who was just as shocked as he was. She did have her reasons to be, too; it seemed to be the first brave move that Conan had made in a while. That she had seen, anyway.

However, she regained her dignity quite easily. "Right. Okay. Would you like me to come along, just in case, Conan-kun?" she asked him.

The boy shook his head. "I think Hakuba-nii-chan can look after me," he said.

"Don't worry, Mouri-chan," Hakuba said, smiling. "I'm more than capable. We'll return by four o' clock, if that's fine?"

"It is." She looked slightly happier now. She had every right to be. Conan was leaving the house.

MKMKMKMKMK

As soon as they had left the building, Hakuba took the hand of the little boy and started steering him down the street. He had already found his 'tantei-kun', after all, so there was no need to keep looking for what was in front of him.

At the same time, he hadn't exactly been lying when he'd said that he 'must keep looking'. To find out that 'tantei-kun' actually meant 'detective_ boy_' was rather surprising, and slightly unbelievable. There was no real reason for Kaitou KID to actually nickname Conan as 'tantei-kun', at least from what he remembered. All the boy did was follow around (and give clues to) Mouri Kogorou, who was somebody who seemed far more likely to take the title, being the man the prefecture newspapers raved about every few weeks when he solved a particularly large case. And KID did have a remarkable sense of humour – if indeed there was one – when it came to nicknames. For example, Hakuba was '-san'. When they talked, he was always and had always been a '-san'. Never mind how he had been sixteen when they first collided with one another. But when KID felt humoured, it was '-ojii-san'.

Oh, hah, hah, _hah_.

Then again, speaking about Mouri Kogorou, Hakuba had always felt odd about him. Maybe it was the fact that his big case-solving moment was when he made an awkward noise, span around on one foot and fell against a wall or into a well-placed chair behind him. Yep, that was it, actually. Mouri acted like a complete idiot so that everybody underestimated him, and then collapsed into a serious tone where all the masks were off. Yes, that was completely believable. He knew Poirot had done the same with his faked broken English, but Mouri's actions were so thorough it was very hard to believe the same thing with him.

And Edogawa Conan seemed perfect for the name at the exact same time. The first time they'd met, for example, Conan was the one who had identified a majority of the clues, was the most comfortable to be sitting in a group of other detectives, and had as a final flourish saved their lives by concocting a staged massacre across the whole house. Only afterwards, while doing some research, had Hakuba discovered more about him: his age was nowhere near affecting his high intelligence, he was the pet of Beika Division One, and he often followed Mouri everywhere they went. In fact, this current week was the major exception to the rule; Mouri was solving cases and Conan was staying at home.

And it was this week that things weren't getting done properly, according to everybody that Hakuba knew in Division One. Mouri was coming up with answers, yes, and they did make sense in context; the problem was that some of the rookies even knew he was thinking it through the wrong way.

"Conan-kun?"

The little boy held his trouser leg even tighter. "Yes, Hakuba-nii-chan?"

"Tell me what happened, please," Hakuba asked, not daring to look down. He'd seen the boy's face as they had walked out. There was nothing more disheartening in the world. "It would be the most helpful thing in the world right now."

"Okay." There was a long pause, as if he were trying to work out what he was doing. It took about a minute for him to pick the conversation back up. "I got a phone call from Shin'ichi-nii-chan's neighbour, Agasa-hakase, telling me that somebody was moving around inside Shin'ichi-nii-chan's house. I was already feeling horrible that day, and I really didn't want to be around any of the others because I felt really uncomfortable about them, so I couldn't pass up the chance to get out of school. I ran a long way to his house, and I ended up bumping into the police at an alleyway. Occhan is friends with Megure-keibu, and I was worried that somebody might have been killed." There were no qualms about using the phrase. That scared Hakuba more than anything else. An eight-year-old child was less scared about mentioning and talking about death than a seasoned detective.

The worst part of it was that Conan did actually have a reason that explained it. Mouri only dragged him along because he had to. It was part-and-parcel of the whole carer gig. Most of the time, Mouri also had to take his daughter along with him, and Conan would end up being left alone in the house. So they took him along. And they usually ran into his cases on those social events, meaning that his family got to see the work he did on a very regular basis. Even the eight-year-old, who was apparently completely unflinching and the first to approach the cadaver, as pointed out in many official reports. Hakuba had eventually chalked it up to desensitisation via overexposure.

"But it was just an assault on the job. I wanted to get to Shin'ichi-nii-chan's house, but I had to ask around since it was my friend Takagi-keiji who ended up being shot. The rest of the witnesses reported a strange creature had fired upon him and had escaped in the direction of Shin'ichi-nii-chan's house."

Ahh, he could see where this was going, now.

"I asked them what the creature was... they told me it was a big purple rat, like you heard Ran-nee-chan say before. 'With a cowboy hat and pistol'." He must have been quoting then; his voice had taken on a much more mature tone and speech pattern. "I... I got a notice from Kaitou KID before the heist and knew he was going to go through the spacial anomaly, so I was worried about it and started running as fast as I could."

"How did you know he was going through the anomaly?" Hakuba asked.

"Well, it was easy enough to figure out from the note," Conan replied, narrowly averting a bad in-joke. He began talking in English. "_The forsaken child looks to the horizon and sees a land beyond the abyss. Upon it, a glow promises dawn's return. Who shall claim that sunrise first_?"

His English was pretty impressive in Hakuba's opinion. Most kids his age didn't learn much past the title of their favourite television show, and any other words were picked up from adverts or their parents. Conan, however, only spoke with a slightly strong accent. The fact that he was quoting from memory also made it impressive; Hakuba's own memory was just a little worse at the best of times, and yet the boy was recalling all of this in a non-native language.

"So, what do you believe it all means? For starters, what is 'the forsaken child'?"

"'Forsaken' means... somebody that was abandoned. Forgotten. Right?" Conan hummed to himself. "And children play, like KID does. The 'horizon' is either the coastline or the edge of the earth, and the 'abyss' is the anomaly. The 'land beyond' is another world." The little boy looked up at him. "He travelled there... saw another world. That's what I guessed, anyway." He clearly had no idea how right he was. "The 'glow' is probably... whatever he stole, and the 'dawn' is the first light of the day. The 'return of dawn' is a new day, but it's also... the return of something good. Gemstones are also considered to glow in the light if you hold them up to it. The gemstone promised the return of something good and the dawn of a new day."

The boy shrugged, probably not realising what Hakuba had just seen. For a few seconds there, while explaining, he had seemed almost _mature_. Said maturity was coming from a small elementary school student who just a few minutes previously had been writhing in his seat unable to speak and had reportedly been staying at home for the last week.

In fact, it took Hakuba a few moments to speak up. "Your story, Conan-kun?" he asked.

The boy's eyes widened and he stuttered, trying to regain his own power of speech. Eventually, he sighed, moving closer to Hakuba as they turned the corner, heading into the city towards the train station. There were more people around and the route was getting wilder anyway; the ainoko reached down and grabbed his hand just in case they were jostled around a bit too sharply. "Anyway...I got there and snuck into Shin'ichi-nii-chan's house – the front gate was open; the lodger who stays there might not have realised he left it open or something. I went to the foot of the stairs and saw the shooter." He fell quieter. "The shooter looked _exactly how they had described it_."

Hakuba's pace noticeably fell. "...You're kidding."

Conan tightened his grip on the elder's wrist. "I'm not. I'm serious. It was a three-foot-tall rat with a hat, gloves and shoes with chaps attached to them. It had a long crinkly tail and a white muzzle with a pink nose. It was holding an American firearm. And it shot at me."

Hakuba stopped, knelt down (much to the chagrin of those in the passing crowd who didn't see him properly), pulled Conan in closer and quickly patted him all over. Conan pushed away. "I'm not injured. He fired warning shots at me. I was too scared to move – but then somebody fired at him from the second floor and he ran away. I grabbed some fur off his tail as he ran off. A... friend of the family had to be informed of it."

"I suppose I know who it is that saved your life," Hakuba said, standing up again.

"I don't know why, but Kaitou KID walked in at the last second. He said he'd been waiting for me there." Conan frowned. "I wonder what he was doing there...?"

"And this was the so-called traumatic event that caused you to retreat into your room for the week," Hakuba guessed.

"Nope," the boy corrected.

"Then what was?"

Once again, Conan fell silent. Hakuba gulped. Edogawa Conan's silences could be haunting, especially after all the exposition previously. What looked even was the fact that this time the quiet, meek Conan from the Mouri Detective Agency had reappeared, the other, more mature mindset having quickly disintegrated as soon as he had hit that subject. It was almost certain that they were now touching upon the very event that had caused Conan's more drastic personality change.

So basically, Hakuba had no clue what had happened to do this to him.

They needed to get to his house quickly.

MKMKMKMKMK

The blue hedgehog stretched as he walked downstairs. Life here was... comfortable, he guessed, after having been here a week. Sure, he wanted to get out of the house and run, but there were the humans here, too.

Humans had always intrigued Sonic, ever since he was born. The most he had ever been taught about them was that they had come down from another planet and settled on his own about three-hundred to two-hundred years ago. They had taken the Mobian race and made it similar to their own, a welcome change to the previous, almost caveman-like life they had led before. Tribes became cities, grazing patches became farms and the language transformed from various sounds adopted from the surrounding animals into shared languages that could be understood by anybody. They had given them knowledge and technology, and as a result of that the Mobian race had flourished. In return, Mobians were free to treat them however they wanted.

A lot of Mobians liked to treat humans with respect due to that history. Humans had given a lot and Mobians wanted to give that back. And since a lot of Mobians had IQ matching the smartest of humans, they gave the human race gifts that they had not managed to create themselves. Hoverboards was something Sonic liked to bring up often when it came to Mobian technology designed to help everybody, especially since he and his friends each owned at least one variant. Another thing was the teleportation pads that appeared in Chao gardens.

But there were also Mobians (i.e., Knuckles) who didn't much like the human race. Sonic may have been a little naive, but he didn't understand Knuckles' way of thinking. They had been acquaintances for a while now – tensions were too strenuous for him to be dubbed a friend – and yet Sonic was still unable to get into the echidna's head. He blamed the isolation for it, since Knuckles had lived alone for most of his life. Of course, Eggman also shared the blame, having been the first human Knuckles ever met.

Then again, it was also in Knuckles' nature to get easily ticked off.

Sonic fit so easily into that first category. Ever since he'd met his first human he was interested in them. His parents had decided it was just because they looked different to everybody else that he knew, so seemingly disproportionate and bare, and both genders wrapped up in reams of specially-made cloth. But as the years had progressed, he hadn't changed, and had begun to watch human-made shows on television, read books written about them and by them, and everything else that came with obsession. The few times he had actually been to school, Sonic had taken history and social classes to better understand and interact with humans. Then, when he'd felt happy enough with what he'd learned, he'd decided to spread it across the world. Soon, in his opinion, everybody would know just how great they were.

Then Eggman appeared, and attacked his home. There was a lot of worry from the community, there not being many humans there except for some smaller colonies on one of the more northern islands. Sonic wasted no time defeating Eggman, running things through his head. This guy wasn't like the good humans he'd read about in his history books at school. He was like the bad humans he had learned about from the older books he'd bought on his own accord. The books at school were lighter, all about the good side. They read like propaganda. Sonic was obviously not very impressed at his school's choice of workbook.

Why try and make the human race into an ideal when it was already interesting enough as it was? The diverse personalities only served to make them more remarkable – how did they even work together in such an environment to be able to get to Mobius? These were the kinds of things he asked himself every day. So he set out to help everybody and hopefully find out along the way what made people like that, since nobody back home was so objective. It was when he met Knuckles that he found the first person who could help him despite never really liking him very much. As he went on, he found other people with this entertaining personality, and eventually he travelled so far and helped out so many people that he became a star in the lives of the humans and got to observe them from close-up.

And now he was back in a place that seemed to be much like those history books. Okay, a little alteration to the culture and foodstuffs here and there, but it was the world he'd read about from so long ago. He was living with a pair of them, in a city of them, in a world of them! His brain was overloading...

* * *

A/N: Sonic is a unique 'child' in many ways. Most people think he's unintelligent, or narcassistic, or impatient. The opposite is reality. He's a praising person, interested in the world and its people, and especially the humans. He's willing to befriend everybody who seems nice, and everybody who doesn't as well. And he loves to learn, as well.

Next week's chapter may be delayed. Keep your eyes peeled.


	16. Kaito's Plan

Hakuba finally settled down on the settee in his room, ears pricked. Well, not really, but one got the idea. Conan was right in the middle of telling him an interesting story when a few questions had driven him to a very dramatic silence. Now, as a detective, Hakuba made other people's business his own and had to nose through things. Well, things that interested him, of course. It was the course of the famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes to take only the weirdest of cases; and Hakuba Saguru aspired to be just like the man, no matter how silly it sounded. And it didn't really sound too silly when you actually thought it through like a detective. There was no point in investigating something or someone if you didn't want to know what was going on.

And Conan's case was grabbing his attention every second. Edogawa Conan was somebody he didn't know much about, even for somebody he had only met twice. The boy was eight years old, having arrived at the Mouri household (if you could call it that) around two years ago without any previous mention from anybody else. He had quickly made himself known with the Beika police when he began picking up various pieces of obscure evidence during Mouri Kogorou's sudden break-out of cases. According to some of the officers talking loudly while he had been asking around last night, as well, Conan had even talking up solving cases in his spare time with his little group of friends. Not to mention the fact that going against Kaitou KID had boosted his fame around Tokyo in its entirety, if not the whole country. And guess who was rumoured to be his cousin.

Kudou Shin'ichi, the disappeared 'saviour of the Japanese police force' who had vanished off the map just days before Conan was picked up on the radar. It was more than suspect when you thought about it, really. Almost like Conan had completely replaced Kudou. Then again, if you suggested that to anybody, they'd correct you and tell you that the one replacing Kudou was actually Mouri, and in a way they were perfectly right as well.

Conan had settled down next to him, fists tightening. It could have been the size of the house, but it seemed far more realistic to blame the stress that the conversation appeared to be generating. Thankfully, these last few minutes had calmed his nerves, and he seemed more like his tone earlier.

Hakuba opened up and switched on the laptop, placing it on the table in front of him. "I would like you to witness this," he said. "Kaitou KID sent me this. He asked himself if he should tell 'tantei-kun'. Personally... I'd say yes."

Conan frowned. "What is it he needs me to hear?" he asked, flexing his fingers.

He sorted through the files, and activated the video file. "This."

MKMKMKMKMK

"I'm planning another heist," Kaito announced to himself.

And indeed he was. The papers were strewn in front of him, just as they had been before. The computer was switched on and currently on screensaver while he scribbled down some notes. His spare hat sat a little way away (Kaito mentally begged somebody to say that it English three times fast) on the desk, perched tentatively on the edge.

"What did you just say?"

The young voice caught him by surprise. Kaito turned around to see Tails with his arms crossed.

"Does anybody else know about this room?" Kaito asked, switching to English carefully.

"Sonic does. First one to find this room," Tails replied, causing the human to blink, "but he's nosey, and always does things like this. Reminds me of when we went to our friend Blaze's world. He couldn't stop himself from examining the entire island and the contents of the houses there. He said he picked up the habit from a few strange friends of his... And if your mom knows, I wouldn't be that surprised, really..."

Kaito shrugged. How would his mother not know about this room, if she knew about his being Kaitou KID? Or if she knew anything about the nature of the house, for that matter?

The young fox Mobian sniffed the air around him. "So what are you doing?" he asked.

For a second, Kaitou juggled the idea of telling him straight out what he was doing. Tails spoke in a very adult manner for his age, and would probably understand him – at the same time, Tails was still a child, and children were impressionable no matter what the IQ was. Not to mention the fact that he had only known him for a few days. It didn't seem worth it to spill family secrets to practical strangers, even ones from another world.

Another world. Nobody knew him there, did they? There was nothing to stop him from telling the little alien.

He sat up in his seat. "I'm working out the trick for the next jewel heist in a few weeks," he said. "It's a long thought process, especially what I'm thinking of for this one. I had to take school off for this."

"I thought humans had to go to school," Tails replied.

"They do. Just that the school thinks I'm ill. The cold I had last week weakened my defences and while in school I caught another bug much too easily. I'm currently recuperating at home while my mom is trying to get a doctor for me." Kaito recited the story with no pauses or mistakes. "I'm using the time that I have to myself to plan out my next theft."

The fox frowned. "Your actions have been bugging Knuckles," he mumbled. "He doesn't take kindly to jewel thieves. The only one who does prompt a positive response is currently back on our home planet. And all the ones that do... well... they kinda get their butt handed to them."

Kaito shrugged. "What can I say? It's my job to bug everybody." Then he raised an eyebrow. "'Butt handed to them'? I have never heard that phrase before."

"They get beaten up."

"Ah." Kaito flicked through his papers, marking a few things down. "In any case, this is highly necessary."

Tails jumped up slightly to try and reach the table. Unfortunately he was only about the same size as Conan, and therefore didn't exactly do very well. So he jumped up off the floor, twisted his tails around like a rotor blade and hovered in the air. Kaito turned around at the chopper sound and his eyes nearly bugged out; meanwhile, the little anthropomorphic fox peered over his shoulder at the work in progress.

"Why is it necessary to steal?" Tails asked. "And in such a flamboyant manner as well..."

Flamboyant. Ostentatious. Showy. Loud. Grandiose. They were the words that defined the Kaitou KID. No hiding in the dark for him, not even at night – if he had a chance to look invisible, he had to wreck it. It was the best plan of action.

"Because," Kaito replied, "if I didn't, they would never be stopped."

"They?"

"Heh... my secret, Tails."

MKMKMKMKMK

The recording came to an end, and Conan sat back. Hakuba watched him carefully. The little boy glared at the screen for a second.

"It was all in English," he finally said.

"And you understood every word of it," Hakuba answered.

The child hesitated, biting his lip, and nodded. "That's right," he replied, except this time he spoke in accented English. "I understood all of the English in that recording." Hakuba blinked slightly; his previous use of English, although more or less fluent allowing for the accent, had only been quoting a heist note.

Swallowing (this was a bit of a tense moment, after all), the ainoko crossed his arms. "The voices you just heard belonged to Kaitou KID, a madman named Doctor Eggman, and three creatures of the same species as the one you described earlier. I gave KID the recording equipment – a small web-camera that he placed in his pocket – before he disappeared into the anomaly. The recording is of people who exist on the other side of it." He adjusted his position on the sofa and locked eyes with the small child who was still staring at the screen of the computer. His pose seemed stiff and unnatural, not to mention how stilted his voice currently sounded. He sounded completely artificial.

"The other side of the anomaly... this is what Kaitou KID wanted us to know?" Conan asked, clasping his hands.

"Yes," Hakuba replied. "I can't understand why he would want 'tantei-kun' to know, however, when 'tantei-kun' happens to be you. A small child."

The boy jerked up in surprise, whipping around to look the older, taller detective in the eyes. Hakuba jumped in his seat – suddenly he seemed a lot more... human that before. Like his personality had taken another one-hundred-and-eighty-degree spin just from that one comment.

"I'm not any small child," he growled, slipping off his seat and walking around to face Hakuba properly. "I don't know what KID thinks this will achieve, but I can guess that he wants me to explain."

The seriousness that the blond had heard described to him so many times had finally emerged, and Hakuba found himself in awe. For as long as Conan had been there, people at the various stations had been talking about him. Hakuba had once heard the name all the way over in Gunma, for example. He'd never picked up on it, of course, until the first time he'd actually met Conan. And what an adventure that had been. He was sure he'd seen the idea before (reminded him of an Agatha Christie novel), but Conan, who most likely hadn't, took the concept of the trap and ran with it. The boy had saved their lives by making them act out their own deaths, which drew the murderer and game master into a sense of security.

The same sense of security which was then blown through the wall when the creepy little child with the shiny glasses wandered in and gracefully uncovered the entire plot like a ghost of their will. Hakuba had only been there because Kaitou KID had reputedly sent the invitation to him. It was actually Kaitou KID who had been _invited_, however.

There had always been something off about Conan. This strange little character who gave off so many hints at crime scenes that coincidentally all pointed to the murder method? This kid who had simply appeared without any paperwork? (Apparently the police had investigated that several times and come up with zero answers.) This omniscient child who claimed that his encyclopaedic knowledge had all been taught him by a clearly incompetent Detective Mouri Kogorou? Hakuba hadn't bought it for a second. He had known Conan was strange the moment he met him.

He just had never figured out why.

"My name is not Edogawa Conan. I'm not eight years old." His fingers twitched. "My name is Kudou Shin'ichi."

Hakuba stared. "...What?"

"A criminal organisation tried to kill me. They only managed as far as shrinking me down to size. They don't know who I am... at least, they didn't used to. They keep coming closer and closer... If I don't stop them soon, Ran will-" He shuddered. He hadn't used honorifics. "The FBI is helping out, but I've not told them who I am and they started the investigation before I met them anyway. But it's not enough unless somebody knows why I'm working with them. This little face... isn't the face of a hunter, huh?" Conan looked up. "I think what KID wants me to say is that I need to tell somebody. The one thing I would never say to anyone. He's got a cruel sense of humour for that."

Hakuba paused, and then closed his eyes. "And so do you. Kudou Shin'ichi disappeared some time ago."

"And I appeared the same day he went missing. Ran will vouch for that. Besides, if you want better proof then compare a photo of me to a photo of Shin'ichi aged four. Or just take some blood and DNA samples. They'll match perfectly, despite the fact that Conan and Shin'ichi are meant to be cousins at closest relation. You can't call that just a coincidence, right? And our birthdays are both the fourth of May, and our eyes are both blue, and our skin is the same colour, and we both have the same haircut – there's a lot of stuff there that's pretty hard to duplicate."

Hakuba shook his head. "That's not possible. You are three-foot-tall and eight years old. Kudou Shin'ichi was five-foot-four and eighteen. You cannot be Kudou Shin'ichi, no matter how much you try." He leant down, his nose getting ever closer to the little boy. "You can't shrink a human being. It's against all laws of _everything_."

Conan stood straighter this time, although his head was bowed. "I'm not lying. I'm Kudou Shin'ichi and-" He broke off, looking around. "And I'm slipping away. The anomaly is causing I-don't-know-what and Kudou Shin'ichi's voice is fading. That's why my personality has been changing. I as Conan Edogawa tried to keep up the mask that everything was alright, but then Kaitou KID called me out on it."

"..." Hakuba was at a loss for words, and for a good reason. It just didn't sound right... and, somehow, it _did_. Certainly it could fit along the timeline from what he'd found out over the past few days while in Beika. Not to mention, what Hakuba had seen before of Conan's personality, he had seemed a lot older and wiser than he really should have been. This was a small child who somehow managed to be on the same foot as the rest of the police, if not a step ahead of them. This was the impossible child.

"Let's suggest for a second that you're telling the truth," he began. "Why would you tell me?"

"Because Kaitou KID needs me to," Conan replied, "and he seems to understand what I'm going through better than everybody. Even myself." He glared at the corners of the room, searching for eyes in the shadows, and when content he let out a sigh. "Let me tell you what I know."

MKMKMKMKMK

It was a few hours later when Hakuba dropped Conan off at the Mouri home again. The master of the house, Mouri Kogorou, was back and had bombarded the young half-Brit with questions for a while. Eventually, Ran had needed to call her father off manually, and a very confused young man had begun the track back home.

Meeting with Conan again had revealed some things that as a detective, Hakuba was just not ready to think about. The main problem, of course, was not Conan being a child, but it was something he simply couldn't ignore. He only wished that some of it had made more sense. The boy had failed to give a decent explanation as to how exactly it had happened; only stating that it had and that he was the long-missing Kudou Shin'ichi. Of course he had been completely forgetting just how poisons worked when he suggested that one had caused him to shrink, since apoptosis just didn't work that way. And the idea of a criminal organisation was nothing new to Hakuba, who had seen many of these types of things in England, America and Japan, but the description that Conan was willing to give didn't match up with anything Hakuba had heard off.

And from what he had suggested, this group was _big_. Too big for the police to notice, maybe? It was likely.

And that was one reason why it was completely unlikely. Why hadn't it been shut down already? Most yakuza-like organisations were usually uncovered within the first eighteen months or so of starting (with the obvious exception of the actual yakuza; there wasn't much you could do when they became part of popular culture). This group would have had to have spread like cancer if the police hadn't yet discovered it. And it had to have kept expanding for at least over two years...

Yikes. 'Big' indeed.

A feather weaved through the sky to fall in front of him, and he looked up. Above him, some kind of balloon exploded, throwing over him the unusual combination of confetti and what seemed to be... strawberry shortcake. Hakuba dodged the falling foodstuffs and blinked as a piece of card dropped right onto his head.

He took it off. It was double-sided, navy blue on one side and white on the other. He flipped to the navy blue side, curious.

'I thought you'd do that.'

Frowning (it was becoming a common occurrence today), he flipped the card over onto the white side and read. This was...

...the same message Kaitou KID had given to Conan before the previous heist?

Indeed, the same poem was emblazoned on the card, and in English as before, but this time a small post-script in Japanese followed it. The small doodle the thief had done of himself in the corner wasn't smiling as it normally would, either. Instead its face looked rather grim. This took Hakuba by surprise; KID was in general a very playful person and the drawing always grinned maniacally at whoever was reading.

"_Please let tantei-kun join you_," he read out to himself. "_If he hides away again then I will not fulfil my mission_... Your mission?"

He looked up. There was a small shadow in the sky, but it had to be a helicopter, since he could hear the quiet sound of rotor blades. It certainly wasn't KID; that was for sure. But there couldn't have been enough time already for KID to disappear completely from view. Suddenly there was a strong wind next to him, and the cared seemed to leave his hand for a quick second before the feeling came back. Confused, he turned away from the sky and looked down at the card and the little doodle. Instead of its previous grim face, a grin had blossomed onto it somehow.

He tipped the card, feeling it for a second. It was the same one.

Smirking, he continued down the road. There was no point in him trying to figure out how the message had reached him exactly, or how its expression had changed; after all, he'd listened to Conan, and that story was no less than insane. Really, now...

Meanwhile, a rather great distance above the detective, a small humanoid fox hovered, frowning. "I don't understand it," he said to himself, messing around with the bag that he had flung over his shoulder before flying. It had contained the metallic balloon; Sonic had brought it back for him after the tournament in the moustached man's world. He'd kept it in the plane ever since, and was very surprised to have seen such a sensitive item survive the crash the way it did. Kaito had specifically said for him to use it after seeing it. "Why does Kaito want me to deliver the message this way? Wouldn't it be better to deliver it himself?"

The hairs on the back of his neck (if he had much of one) stood up, and he turned around. The sight of a crooked tail met his eyes, before it disappeared behind a building. There were some dark shadows cast on the ground. Large ones.

Tails blinked, hovering closer slightly. Was it him, or did he really just see the Mobian that had vanished some days before?

* * *

A/N: The plan is in motion, and a friend returns. What is Kaito planning?


	17. Too Many Secrets

Another three or so days passed, and Conan seemed to improve. Ran was very impressed with his progress; he especially perked up when Ayumi called that Tuesday and asked him if he could come to meet them that afternoon, since one of the students had lost a pet and there had been signs of a particularly rough struggle. After listening to a few of the points of interest, the boy had sat up in his seat, clutching the phone slightly more weakly than he would have done for the last week, and asked calmly where they would like to meet. From then he had started going back to school. Ran had been ecstatic, and although Conan wasn't exactly back to normal (he still stuttered a bit, and he seemed a bit distant) things were slowly going back to the way they should be.

Then again, that was exactly what Ran was supposed to think.

"Ran-nee-chan?" Conan said, peering over the work-surface. The kitchen had become their standard area of conversation over the last few days. Conan had become more than willing to assist in cooking the dinner for them. The results when he tried on his own, Ran had to admit, were so eerily similar to many of Shin'ichi's old cooking disasters when he was a kid.

She looked down from the curry she was making. Conan's favourite. Shin'ichi's too. They were so alike it had taken her by surprise many times before. "Yes, what it is, Conan-kun?"

"Can I take a nap, please?" he asked. "Ayumi-chan, Genta-kun and Mitsuhiko-kun ran me ragged today now that I'm back at school."

She ruffled his hair. "Of course, you can," she replied. "You don't have to ask."

Nodding, the little boy ran off to his room. He closed the door, before reaching up and securing the lock. He turned around, slumping against the wood.

And once again Kudou Shin'ichi met with Edogawa Conan in the library of his old home.

"It's good to see you, Conan-kun," Shin'ichi muttered. Whereas before he would have the freedom of movement, now he was stuck permanently in his chair, and for good reason. A few nights ago, Shin'ichi's legs had practically dissolved. Conan had cried when he saw it. "I mean, properly."

"Uh, huh. Same to you too, Shin'ichi-nii-chan." Conan climbed up into his lap and crossed his arms, leaning back on the other's chest. Shin'ichi bent over him slightly, his best attempt at a hug since his arms had stopped working properly. "Why are you still smiling?"

The elder raised an eyebrow. "Smiling?" he repeated. "I didn't believe I was."

Conan poked his face, prompting a slow and stifled reaction from Shin'ichi. "You are. It's worrying me."

"Well, I know that things are going to turn out alright," Shin'ichi replied.

"And how do you know that, Shin'ichi-nii-chan?"

"Simple," he answered. "Kaitou KID has the answer to our plight."

The boy, of course, was less than impressed with his answer. Well, they thought the same thing, so the elder one himself did wince slightly at his own words. "Shin'ichi-nii-chan, I don't think that he's going to do it..." He sighed, rolled over and rested his head on Shin'ichi's chest. After all, how could KID do it? He shouldn't even understand the situation, since they'd only met so very few times.

Shin'ichi jumped, causing the little boy to glare at him, but settled down in his position. "Remember the note?" he asked.

Conan looked up. "The note?"

"The one he sent us." Shin'ichi nodded over to a shelf. "Third shelf up, so you can reach it. The blue one with the dark stripes. Should be on page twenty-seven."

Conan pushed himself off Shin'ichi and walked over to the shelf hurriedly. From what Shin'ichi could see, he was trying hard to keep a red face under control. It was quickly betraying him, along with the faint heartbeat that echoed through the room hauntingly. That had sped up. If Conan were going to admit it someday, it would be much too early - and much too frightening. Edogawa Conan was definitely hiding something emotional, and this was completely impossible. Conan was a separate personality only created by years of adapting to him, and as they shared the same headspace then they shouldn't have been able to hide anything at all from each other. If it was possible, that meant that the split was becoming a lot more serious.

Conan pulled the book out – yes, this one was the right one, good – and thumbed through the pages, finally reaching the note. "I don't see what this had got to do with it all."

"_The forsaken child looks to the horizon and sees a land beyond the abyss. Upon it, a glow promises dawn's return. Who shall claim that sunrise first?_" Shin'ichi recited. "Doesn't it seem odd that he'd send us a heist message such as this?"

Conan's eyes widened. "This is a _heist message_!?" he exclaimed.

"Isn't it obvious?" Shin'ichi mumbled. "KID does like sending weird messages, but this matches the pattern of a heist note. If he were just trying to alert us to what he was doing, don't you think he'd send something like, 'Keep your eyes peeled'? The fact that he decided to word it in such a longwinded but technically correct fashion, and then included the challenge, '_Who shall claim that sunrise first?_', makes it obvious he'd actually telling us his next heist."

"Then..." Conan fell down onto his rear and crossed his arms. "That's unfair. I have no idea what he's talking about."

"Think it through," Shin'ichi said, leaning back in the chair. "We already know the 'forsaken child' is KID. The animal forsaken by God, the goat, has a child known as a 'kid' in English, something we learned back at the Sunset Mansion. So let's start with the 'horizon'. What do you think that means?"

Conan licked his lips. "Isn't that easy?" he replied. "'Horizon' means the point where the earth meets the sky, doesn't it?"

"Exactly. The horizon is a boundary."

"You don't think he's talking about the district boundary, do you?" Conan asked.

"KID doesn't think that small. If anything, he's more likely to think of something like the _prefectural _boundary," Shin'ichi corrected. "So we're likely to be anywhere on the edge of the Tokyo Prefecture."

"And 'to see the land beyond the abyss' is to...?" Conan scratched his head. "Not too sure if we can find an equivalent for that..."

"Think poetically." Shin'ichi shifted in his seat. "If the 'forsaken child' is a biblical reference, then there's a chance that this is also a reference to a Christian concept. What would be beyond the abyss in Christianity?"

The boy stood up, rifling through the books. Finally he took one and opened it, his back to the practically-dismembered teenage boy sitting in the armchair. "The abyss is death. People will tell you that death is like blacking out, or going to sleep for a long time when you're a child. That's if they're non-religious. If somebody is Christian, then they'll instead tell you that... you'll join God in heaven and watch down upon those you love."

"Exactly, so we're looking for something named after heaven. Now. Next part is the 'glow' that 'promises dawn's return'. As usual, any mention of something that shines is a gemstone according to Kaitou KID. So if something promises the return of dawn, what could that something be? Again, we're looking at the sky here, but we're not going to think about Christianity this time. So let's take the basic meaning." Shin'ichi looked over at him. "What precedes dawn?"

The hairs stuck up on the back of his neck as Conan scurried over to a step-ladder, dragged it behind the chair and climbed, pulling other books out. The kid knew he was looking at him. "Lots of people mistake dawn for the time the sun rises. That's just a misconception. Dawn actually marks the beginning of the twilight _before_ sunrise." He switched books. "The time before that is the darkest night, usually called solar midnight. Solar midnight lasts for a few hours, and shouldn't be confused with twelve o' clock midnight. We're likely looking for a stone with a name that relates to solar midnight, or that resembles it. Or, he could even just be telling us to be open about the time."

Shin'ichi nodded. Good, the boy was getting there. "Now take into a different context. What does midnight mean outside of the literal translation?"

"Everything shutting off, total darkness, the end of the day... twelve o' clock midnight itself?" Conan suggested. "Midnight's a pretty broad term. It encompasses a lot."

"In popular culture, midnight also means the end of the world as represented on Doomsday Clock in Chicago, America," Shin'ichi replied. "The time of midnight on said clock represents the point at which civilisation – and usually, the human species as a result – comes to an end. In Christianity, this event is called the Rapture."

"So it could be referring to a ridiculous amount of things, couldn't it?" Conan groaned. He slid down the ladder smoothly, landing on the floor, and lowered his head. "This is hopeless. I don't get it."

"It's not hopeless, Conan-kun. Because it's just a double meaning." Shin'ichi grinned. "Because that clock currently reads seven minutes to midnight."

"Oh. _Oh_." Conan raised his head. "So we have a time, we have a decent idea of what kind of place to go to, and little clue as to the name of the target. Excellent. I think our original reading made much more sense."

"So do I," Shin'ichi admitted, "but this is Kaitou KID and that's exactly the way he thinks. It _is_ a little awkward, but he doesn't act symbolic without a reason. Oh, and Conan-kun?" The boy froze and looked up. "You know it's not nice to hide something from me."

"I'm not..." The boy slumped. "I'm not hiding..."

"Conan-kun..." Shin'ichi sighed. "Come over here." The boy did, taking a few short, hurried steps. "Would you tell me what's on your mind?"

"I… I really can't," he mumbled. "But it's not very important, Shin'ichi-nii-chan."

Shin'ichi probably would have crossed his arms had he been able to. "I'll be the judge of that."

"I think that Haibara-chan knows that something is going on with us," he blurted. "We have to be very worried; Haibara-chan is ever so smart and she'll figure us out really quickly!"

The elder paused. "That's not worth hiding from me, Conan-kun," he replied. "Besides, if Kaitou KID has found the solution to our dilemma, all we have to do is meet him at this next heist. Hakuba-kun will hand over the message to the police and they will probably get a time out of it. We just wait until then."

"You really trust him, don't you?"

"I would trust him with my life, Conan-kun. Because the one consistency about his heists is that if anybody is hurt, it was never him."

MKMKMKMKMK

"Alright, what have you got?" Nakamori asked as Hakuba handed the note over.

"A personal, first-class delivery from KID from four days ago," he replied. (Ah, so it was four days ago. Thank you, Hakuba.) "I'm sorry; I've only just been allowed to do any investigation this morning. The thief seemed very adamant about that. I decided giving this to you would be the first step."

Nakamori took the card, flipping it over in his hand. "It's double-sided. The message on the blue side is related to the delivery, no doubt." The junior detective nodded. Nakamori seemed to understand. After all, Kaitou KID had played many tricks on him before. A quick mockery was exactly in his style. The inspector turned the card back to the white side. "... ? '_Please let tantei-kun join you. If he hides away again then I will not fulfil my mission._ Hakuba-kun, do you have an explanation for that?"

Hakuba paused. Should he...? Yes. This was the Task Force. They needed as much information as was required when it came to understanding KID's message. He needed to edit out the conspiracy theory, but it should be safe for their ears. "I do. Do you know that little boy who shows up sometimes at heists?" he asked. "He usually is escorted by Mouri Kogorou-san and his daughter Ran-chan. He often ends up in the newspapers because he tends to reach the man before we do."

"Hmm... Oh, right." Nakamori snapped his fingers. "That kid with the awkward name. What was it? Konata... Conner..."

"His name is Conan-kun, Nakamori-keibu. Edogawa Conan-kun."

"Yes, that's right." The man crossed his arms. "But what on Earth does that have to do with the name 'tantei-kun'?"

Hakuba smirked. It seemed so refreshing to explain things to someone else for a change. "Well, Conan-kun has had such a large number of confrontations with KID that the criminal noticed something was up. It turns out that Conan-kun is actually ridiculously intelligent... possibly influenced by his current carer Mouri-san, and for the most part has actually been figuring out KID's tricks by himself. That would be the very reason that KID finds it difficult to evade him. The thief was so impressed that he gave him the codename of 'tantei-kun', similar to how he calls me tantei-san during our own encounters."

Nakamori blinked. Many of the men also in the room looked up in surprise, and Hakuba was suddenly aware of the eyes on him. Then again, he understood perfectly why they were doing so. This information was nothing that they'd ever heard before, and suddenly this eighteen-year-old boy had just come out with it. Sure, Hakuba was meant to be a prodigy, but this information was more private than anything else. Since most of the Task Force, who spent every single heist with Kaitou KID, had no clue what he was talking about, it was obvious that he had done his own investigation into the matter before handing the note to the police.

Although... That had to be a very well-performed investigation. They probably wouldn't have figured it out in such a small space of time. Hakuba had to have had a hunch.

The inspector shrugged nonchalantly. "Alright. What do you make of it?" he asked. He sounded uneasy.

"What do I make of it?" Hakuba repeated. "Well... unfortunately, not a lot. During those last few days I haven't been able to do as much research as I would like to. However, I can guess...

"Taking things as references to Christianity, one can read the note as this: The forsaken child is one I've already run into once before. It means the child of the goat, which in English is named a kid. KID is looking to the horizon. If it were related to the original heist, then I'd originally have guessed that horizon to be the edge of reality – in other words, the anomaly. However, we can take into a more literal sense now and consider the horizon just to be the edge of something. Since this is Kaitou KID, we can rule anything ridiculously small, but it still has to be somewhere he can reach easily without anybody noticing his civilian persona's absence." _Some common sense_, though Hakuba, _which he was surprisingly quick to abandon before._ "So it could be anything from the edge of a city to the edge of a prefecture.

"Next we take the 'land beyond the abyss' part. Now that one's confusing, since there's no real corresponding part of the mythology ... but it may have something to do with the plane of God. After all, what divides us from God is the endless black abyss of outer space. It's not actually a completely empty area, of course, since there are the different artefacts of the universe lying around: stars, planets, asteroids, black holes, each and everyone hovering left, right, up and down and every other random direction you can think of. Still," Hakuba mumbled, sitting down on top of one of the desks, "I think it's a good way to code the name for a location.

"Now, to zoom in on that location, we merely look to the east."

"What!?" Nakamori exclaimed.

"It's not the most sensible hunch, I know," Hakuba apologised, "but the note is written in English – and the abyss is also a word that is used to refer to the bottom of the ocean. Beyond the ocean to the east is the edge of North America. American English is the version taught over here. I believe he's telling us to look east."

Nakamori sent a few men to work at the computers at their desks and put his hands in his desks. "Go on."

"Right. The next part happens to be about something that precedes dawn. The light he's talking about would be the jewel. I assume this part would be telling us the name of his target. Therefore, whatever precedes dawn – which is night – is the name or related to the name of our heist. Of course, the phrasing is telling us that without this key item, we wouldn't have a dawn to wake up to." He crossed his arms, bowing his head. "That piece of subtext, though, isn't anything I understand too easily..."

There was a silence, punctuated only by the loud clacking of the keyboards of the men doing the internet searches.

Nakamori glanced over the troubled-looking teenager sitting on top of the desk with much suspicion, and for very good reason. Hakuba was hiding something. Keeping information from the police was not what they needed right now. And the worst part of it was that Hakuba didn't even know how obvious he was making himself. That earlier little mystery, about the identity of 'tantei-kun', for instance – Hakuba should not and would not have been able to investigate that one successfully in such a small amount of time without having the whole police force accompany him to check out the entire prefecture of Tokyo. And even then he would have needed an incredible amount of information beforehand.

"Hakuba-kun," he began, "how long did it really take you to find out who 'tantei-kun' is?"

He looked up, eyes wide.

"I order you to tell me how you actually found out," Nakamori commanded. "Right now."

Hakuba looked around. Once again everybody was staring blankly at him, and the typing had come to a complete halt.

"Err... come with me," he conceded, and led Nakamori to the interrogation room that they had spoken to Commander Stonewall a short time ago. He closed the door as tightly as possible.

"...KID dropped the name a little while back," he replied, listening to how his voice reverberated around him. "Well... the day after the last heist, actually, when he appeared. KID wanted him to know about the alien creatures. I decided it was in my best interests to tell him."

"Now why would he want you to do that…?" Nakamori pondered.

Hakuba ran a few fingers through his hair. "I believe that Conan-kun would be the crux of the entire problem. After talking to him, I… noticed a few interesting things."

"What are they?" the inspector demanded. "If they're so important that Kaitou KID would travel through a special anomaly, why don't you tell us?"

"Because it is Conan-kun's secret to tell, not mine," Hakuba retorted. "If he sees fit to inform you, then that's his choice. I cannot make his decisions for him. Now let's get back there and see the possible targets and venues that your men have tracked down."

* * *

A/N: It's been a long time since we've seen Nakamori, and even longer since we've seen his daughter. Then again, Jii-san as well... There are many characters to keep up with; I hope I'm doing well.

Apologies for any delays; my father purchased a new keyboard for me to use, which is incredibly hard to work with. It's one of those flexible keyboards made out of rubber. It's also one that doesn't type properly. I can only use that keyboard on the main computer in front of him, which makes writing difficult, as he is near me most of the time I have for writing. Don't be alarmed if next week is a little late also; at least now you know the reason why.


	18. The Results of Intervention

"Tails…" Sonic muttered.

"Hmm?"

The pair were rifling through the books in the entertainment suite upstairs. Kaito's father had amassed a lot of books over the years of his life, mostly about things related to his magic tricks. There were tomes on things from stage magic to street magic. You name it, he had it. Alongside these, however, were the subjects you'd not expect from the library of a stage magician but would expect from the library of a phantom thief. Things like books on the properties of different stones, ancient myths and legends, mechanics, geography, maps of various cities, guides on various great works of art… many things resided on those shelves.

"Have you asked Kaito what he's doing all of this for?" asked Sonic, pulling out some books on planes and handing them to Tails.

"He says that the specific reason he needs the Chaos Emerald is to serve as both a distraction and a cure for his friend," the fox replied, taking the books. "I didn't quite get it much…"

Sonic shrugged, and then opened up a book on Greek legend. "Come to think of it, he did ask me some odd things about the Chaos Emeralds last week. He kept pressing me about how they worked, but he seemed to want me to put more emphasis on how exactly using them could affect people that aren't in their normal physical state."

"You don't think his friend's been mangled or something, do you?" Tails mumbled, shuddering. "The Chaos Emeralds sometimes have random effects on normal people." He paused, running his finger down the spine of the book nervously. "What do you think happened to his friend?"

"His ears perked up when I mentioned about rapid cell duplication," Sonic said. "But if that's so… I don't have a clue what could've happened. Maybe he secretly wants to give all his enemies cancer or something?"

Tails frowned. "That's not good…" He opened the book and flicked to the back. "Hmm… I can't read anything in here."

"Neither can I," Sonic grinned. "Except for one thing at the front here."

"What's that?"

"The date of the print-run of this book is written in Arabic numerals. It's a first edition, two-thousand-and-one, and it's not in any terrible state. In fact I'd say this was a brand new book purchased at the most last year."

"…Oh, my…"

MKMKMKMKMK

"Knuckles! Knuckles!"

The song was yelling his name. This quite clearly was not part of the song, he noted, as this one was repeating for the second time and he had not heard any of the deep-voiced rock singers yelling his name the first time round while blabbering on in their strange human language.

The echidna pulled out an earphone just as Tails and Sonic ran (and, in the case of Sonic, ambled) into the room. "What is it, guys?" he growled. "I was trying to get some piece and quiet listening to this primitive listening device."

"That's the point I'm about to make," Tails retorted. "When we came through the anomaly it sent us back in time, Knuckles!"

"WHAT!?" The echidna shot up. "You mean…"

"The reason why Kaito needed my exposition when we first appeared and why he needs to keep us in the house is because the humans here on this planet don't know that the Mobian species exists yet," Sonic said. "If any one of us walks outside, we'll end up permanently changing the timeline!"

Knuckles glanced around the house. "Hmm." He got up, crossing his arms. "What if _he_ escaped over to this side?"

Sonic and Tails looked at each other, biting their bottom lips. Knuckles, although short-tempered usually, always became his old stoic self whenever things went wrong. In this state he never tended to kid around. "You mean him?" Sonic said. "The guy Egg-for-brains got with his machine? Is that even possible?"

"Oh, it's possible." Knuckles gestured to the television.

"So _that_'s what you've been doing all this time," Sonic purred slyly. "Watching an ancient television while everybody else has been doing stuff to help Kaito out in his mission. _Real_ productive, wise guy."

"Shut up, Sonic. At least I'm not answering to a pathetic human child whose gig is stealing precious treasures from other people while performing his fancy little parlour tricks to make everybody look the other way." He shook his head. "Anyway, that thing happens to show human news programmes. Guess who got a mention on the news last week in the form of surveillance footage of a shooting and a bunch of eyewitness testimonies coupled with some badly-drawn sketches of the culprit: a giant purple rat with a revolver-type firearm. That sounds a lot like him to me."

"Knuckles, why didn't you tell us about this when it originally came up?" Sonic groaned.

The echidna bared his teeth. "Because I didn't want to disturb you and Fairy Fingers while you nearly blew our cover a few days back!"

Tails began pacing the room hurriedly, his twin tails in a knot. He twisted his fingers around themselves. "Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no… what's gonna happen to Mobius now that time's being changed?" he squeaked. "Our planet could be being actively searched for as we speak! And then, what'll happen to it? I've heard humans get more supportive of their own violent acts the further back you go along the timeline…"

"That's not true, Tails," Sonic retorted. "Humans aren't that bad! They aren't going to hurt us! Besides, they don't pick up that fast. I bet it's all going to be blamed on some kind of supernatural goings on."

MKMKMKMKMK

"I'm telling you, it's a demon!" Aoko yelled at the top of her voice, deafening half of the class.

"There's no such thing as monsters!" Kaito yelled back, deafening the rest of them. He sunk down in his seat, arms crossed and eyes closed. "It's probably just some guy in a suit or something."

"A guy in a suit couldn't pull that costume off in a million years, Kaito!" the girl argued. "If you didn't realise, that thing was reported to be half the size of a human being with a huge head and noodle arms. Besides, if that was a guy in a suit then what on Earth was he doing in a suit?"

Kaito opened one eye to look at her. It had been a while since he'd popped into school – in fact, it was the first time he'd been in since last heist. The administration had already been informed of his 'sickness' over the past several days; since Hakuba pulled out around the same time and they had no idea of the constant duel between pompous British git and mischievous phantom thief, they ruled it as just a cold bug going around. Luckily a few others had been absent around the same time, so there was no suspicion of anything even if they had managed to connect the dots yet. He was now eagerly (note: sarcasm) awaiting his teacher's appearance in the classroom and the obvious clumps of homework that would appear on his desk.

"If he was in a suit, it was to disguise his face, and maybe to also pin the blame on whoever uses that suit at Tropical Land," he replied swiftly. "Plus, while in the suit, even if the gun is found, there'll be no fingerprints on it."

Aoko put on a triumphant grin. "Oh? What about genetic evidence in the suit itself? Why didn't he think of that?" she retorted, causing several people in the classroom to start muttering to each other. Amongst them, Akako rolled her eyes, wondering how this conversation between the two verbal combatants began in the first place. All it had taken was a mention of the news and the strange animal that had attacked somebody in an open area.

"Well, if he ever read up on that case with the _Gomera_ actor a few years ago, he'll know to burn the suit so that any genetic evidence goes up in flames," Kaito replied, nodding.

"Of course this conjecture is all well and good... _if_ we assume that the attack was premeditated!" announced a proud Aoko.

The trickster smirked. "If the murder wasn't premeditated, then why would he have an illegal firearm ready on him and why didn't the video show whatever the policeman did to make him commit his _un_premeditated crime?" He scratched the back of his head. "Not everybody can pull a mop from their-"

Said mop appeared from nowhere.

"..."

"There's also something you've neglected to tell any of us," said the girl, fingers tightening on her unusual weapon. "Why do you have an escape tunnel in your desk?"

"Escape tunnel? It's a stage aid. Why else do you think I'd have it?" he bluffed. Not really, actually – he kept that tunnel around because it meant he could perform conjuring tricks a little more easily. You couldn't hide anything in your sleeves these days. "Surely you realise I've been getting those newspapers from somewhere, right? Magic's all smoke and mirrors; you have to have some trap doors hanging around, no matter the stage."

"Stop messing around and tell me the truth, you idiot!"

Kaito stiffened slightly, glancing at her. Her feet were planted carefully on the ground, and he could tell she wasn't kidding from the way her voice was wavering slightly. Everybody else was waiting for the fur to start flying. Even the teacher, who had just entered the room, was giving him an apprehensive look. It was as if he'd just been unmasked as the KID.

Well, time to let the KID take over.

"Yes, that tunnel is there for me to make my hasty getaway," Kaito replied. "It comes out just outside of the east wall. But it's only a comfort thing, really."

Aoko lowered her weapon. "Why the heck would you need a tunnel as a comfort thing!?" she exclaimed.

Kaito looked rather pointedly at the mop. Aoko followed his eye-line to it... and then proceeded to give him a no-holds-barred beat-down.

MKMKMKMKMK

"We finally have something, keibu," one of the men announced after another twenty minutes. Searching the entire east border of a prefecture was not an easy task, but they'd finally been able to come up with something after such a while.

Nakamori looked at the screen. "Excellent. Now we just require a date."

"Knowing KID… that date would likely be…" Hakuba drifted into silence, bent over slightly with his eyes closed and the very corner of his mouth just vaguely turning upwards.

Nakamori turned around. "What is it, Hakuba-kun?" he asked, furrowing his brow. Dear Lord, he hoped that Hakuba wasn't hiding something else from him, especially anything of this particular magnitude. After all, Hakuba was a rather pricy catch; his tailor-made service came with expenses most other people of his age didn't bother offering for their work. Weren't consultant detectives like him there to help the police capture criminals rather than hinder them?

"I was just thinking. Kaitou KID enjoys making awkward references." Hakuba walked around them. "Rather than mention the moon this time, he refers to the return of the sun. The sun is often used as a representation of spring, and the return of spring is the spring equinox. It's on the twentieth, two days after the next full moon."

"So we just have to wait until then?"

"Exactly." Hakuba smirked. "KID never makes his puzzles too hard to solve."

"Well, I hope you're right about it," Nakamori replied. "All we have to do now is inform Edogawa Conan-kun about this so we can take him to the heist."

The blond shrugged. An unusual thing to do for him, but everybody was acting a bit odd anyway, so no big deal. "We'd have to go through Mouri-chan first. She's been very… protective of him as of late." He was going to say something else, but figured that he probably wouldn't get away with it.

Although, it was going to be a long while before they would have to ask to bring him to the heist. Ran most likely wouldn't have heard the comment at all, unless some stupid officer in the back decided to blurt it aloud. And then only he would be beaten up. And then again the guy might mention that Hakuba said it. He was no idiot; he knew Mouri Ran was a regional karate champion and he did not ever want to be on the other side of those kicks and punches.

"I'm going to call somebody, if that's alright," he said, bowing, and attempted to exit the room. Unfortunately for him, however, the inspector planted a hand on his shoulder. With a slight shiver he came to a halt.

"There is still something you've not told us." Nakamori moved his hand to the teenager's arm. "The location of the miniature camera you gave to KID on the heist." Hakuba sighed. "You said it would help us track him, but the camera only records onto a small drive which can then be taken out and plugged into a computer. Where is the drive?"

"The contents of that drive… are only to be seen by me and Conan-kun," Hakuba answered. "Those were KID's terms. I could let you see it – no, listen to it, as the visuals are knocked out after a while - but you have to understand that it's meant to be private information between the three of us. In fact, I'll get it now for you. I was going to be asking for it to be delivered here anyway, as well as contact the associated party. I believe you know who."

Nakamori glared for a few seconds. "You realise that you're pushing your luck as far as it can go. Any more cover-ups like this and we'll be looking for a fitting punishment."

Hakuba glanced down at the floor. "I'm well aware of that. Just trying to keep promises… even if they are with thieves."

Nakamori let him go, and he walked down the corridor for a little while, hands in pockets, before whipping out his mobile phone from his pocket. Letting one more sigh pass through his lips he opened it up and dialled Baaya's number.

"Hello?"

"_Bocchama? What is it?_"

" Yes, hello, Baaya-san. There should be a memory card in my laptop at the moment. Go upstairs, collect it from my bedroom and bring it down to the police station."

"_I will do so._"

There was a brief pause on the other end, and he listened to the lady's shuffling as she hurried up the stairs. He stood there, tapping his foot, as he waited.

But when Baaya came back onto the phone, he didn't get the response he wanted.

"_There isn't a card in the laptop, bocchama. Maybe it's elsewhere?_"

"…What?" Hakuba stared blankly at the wall for a few moments, then shook himself out of it and returned to the conversation, his fingers wrapping tighter around the telephone. "I assure you, Baaya-san, I did not take it out of the laptop. It was in there this morning when I left. I checked thoroughly."

"_Well, it's not here. You're entirely sure that you didn't take it out with you?_"

"Of course I didn't. There's no reason that I would." He paused, breathed – in, out; in, out; one, two; one, two – and said less agitatedly, "Are you absolutely sure… that it's _not_ in my room?"

"_Positive._"

Hakuba hung up, and looked up at the sky, groaning. "This is just going further and further to pot, isn't it?" he grumbled in English. He closed his eyes and leaned against the wall, rubbing his forehead lightly. "Oh…"

MKMKMKMKMK

"I done what yuh've asked and gotten ya the freakin' tape," he said. "Is this all ya need?"

"No, it's not. We still have more for you to do."

It had been this way for the last several days. The group here were nice in their own little way; they offered shelter and food for him in exchange for certain… services, should he say? (Not to mention that they actually spoke the same language as he did, which always garnered a plus even in the more dire situations.) Said services always took advantage of his special abilities. Never mind that he had to work so constantly for them at every opportunity, as he was hardly exhausted, although a little miffed that he didn't get any other rewards for his job other than more jobs. He was enjoying it.

He was talking, of course, about his marksman skills and decent speed. _Not_ whatever just appeared in peoples' heads. He knew there were strange people around – heck, he was currently in with the strangest bunch he'd ever seen – but he hoped to high hell that nobody was that bad.

And on the subject of bad people, that voice in his head had been disturbing him a lot recently. Telling him things. Telling him that this was not a good place at all to be; that the people here would do little for him and for the world; that he should get out of there as soon as possible. He liked to shove that voice into the back of his head and ignore it. It only kept getting louder each time it argued, but it was starting to run out of points to make.

"What else have I gotta do?" he said, nearly enthusiastically – _only_ nearly.

"We're moving you to a special unit with another branch of ours. I think you'll recognise the leader as soon as you see him."

"Wouldn't 'appen to be that white-haired bloke, would 'e?" He yawned. "Unless it's somebody I met for a brief second durin' trainin'?"

"Oh, trust me. This will be a big surprise."

He wheeled around to walk out of the door. "Well, good. Don't wanna be bored."

* * *

A/N: Everybody's been keeping secrets from each other. Those secrets... one day they're all going to come out, and who knows if they'll be forgiven.

Surprisingly I finished this chapter early, but didn't start on the next chapter until late last night.


	19. The World is Changing

"_Is Conan-kun coming back to school tomorrow?_" Ayumi exclaimed over the phone late that afternoon.

Ran pulled the phone away from her ear slightly. "I'd imagine so," she replied, glancing over at the office door. Things had been quiet for a while, which had started to worry her. Ninety-nine percent of the time that people stayed silent in another room with the door locked, her father would open it later and discover that person's corpse caught in a very imaginative death trap. But, after an hour, the boy had poked his head through to request lunch in a very bright voice considering the last few days. He seemed to be fine, though hiding something; a quick… 'interrogation', if you will, had spawned the response that he had just been getting less sleep lately. Ran, being Ran, tucked him in.

A few hours later and he was alright again,

"_Thank you! We've all been really worried about him!_" the little girl chanted. "_Ai-chan especially has been worried. She's been going through all of these big science and psy-…psyche-… head books at the Beika Library. I think she was trying to look for what's wrong with Conan-kun._"

Ran blinked. "Don't worry. Nothing's wrong with him. I checked myself."

"_That's good. I'll go to call off Ai-chan now, since she doesn't need to keep looking. Thank you, Ran-nee-chan!_"

The teenage girl smiled to herself as she put down the phone, but as soon as it hit the table a solemnity overcame her and she began rubbing her hands together.

Ai was one of the most adult people she had ever come across – an odd statement to make, considering that the girl was only a few months older than the rest of her group of friends. She was quiet, reserved and logical in her approach to work, play and conversation. Every time she lifted her head up to speak to Ran it was a minor miracle, since the first time they had met she had been little more than a shy and fragile little flower. But in the company of her fellow children she was at the top of the food chain; apparently her favourite things to do included calling Conan out every time he was mistaken or negative about something – a difficult hobby for anyone to uphold, and a magnificent display of hypocrisy. Ran was not so much annoyed as she was strangely intrigued.

The elder girl's plan of action was taking things slowly and learning to get used to Ai's ways. But there were times when she knew she had to step in and ask what exactly was going on. 'Right now' seemed to be ideal, especially since Ai knew something about Conan that she didn't. She had seen the two talking together – they clearly had a connection, though what seemed to be a strained one at best. If Conan had something wrong with him, Ai would know.

She stood up, glancing over at Conan's room. She should probably take him along – it would work as a good test to see if he was actually ready to face his friends.

She dialled Ayumi's number again and waited for it to pick up.

"…Hello again, Ayumi-chan. I'm taking Conan-kun over to meet you at the library. Can you stick there while we take the train? …Oh, and call you parents just to make sure they understand, okay?"

MKMKMKMKMK

"Tadaima!" Kaito cried, slipping through the door. The afternoon had been a tough experience for him. Aoko had tried to keep him back to talk to him. Luckily the escape route had proved its usefulness as he quickly made himself disappear by way of a smoke bomb while standing on top of his desk. The girl hadn't been willing to jump down all ten feet of the tunnel.

"Okaeri!" said Tails, looking up from the sofa. He had a troubled look on his face.

"Oh, you learned that listening to my mother?" the magician replied, barely straining to keep the smile on his face. "That's pretty good. Where is she?" When there was no answer, he frowned. "Where is my mother, Tails?"

"Oh! She went out to get some groceries…" Tails coughed. From behind the little fox, out popped Sonic and Knuckles. They had nearly identical expressions to their little friend, although Knuckles' was tinged with a small degree of grim assuredness, and Sonic's with curiosity. All three of them looked oddly tense about something. Kaito froze. "Kaito, we have a lot we need to talk to you about." Oh, no. No, no, no… it couldn't be. It just couldn't be. It was impossible. There was no way.

He looked around wildly. "Where's my mother?" he whispered. "What happened? Did t-they take her?"

Tails blinked. "Who are you talking about? She's really out buying groceries."

Kaito glared at him, but his stare lightened when he noticed how calmly Tails had answered that question. "Then what's with all the nervousness?" he asked. "What's wrong?"

"We… have something we need to-"

Sonic butted in. "The anomaly is a rift in space and_ time_."

Tails tried to growl at him, but the sound only came out as a purr. Meanwhile, Kaito furrowed his brow.

"…The spacial anomaly… is a rift in space-_time_?" Kaito repeated.

"As in, this is the human world that's twinned with our planet of Mobius, the world called Earth," Tails explained, shooting a look of exasperation the blue hedgehog's way. "It's just in the past. The world where we come from is from five hundred years in the future." He put a finger to his mouth. "I don't understand how I didn't realise that before – the overhead view of this city is something I've seen in my history books several times. This is Tokyo City as it appeared during the early twenty-first century, correct?"

Kaito was silent for a second. "…This is a problem," he muttered.

All three anthropomorphic aliens stared. "Of course it's a problem!" Knuckles replied. "We've already revealed our species to the human race two hundred years before they're meant to make first contact with an otherworldly race!"

"It's even worse than that." Kaito walked to the living room and sank down onto the sofa. "It's so much worse than that. There's another one of you here."

"The one that Knuckles told us was shown on the news?" Sonic replied. "We know that guy. He's a nasty piece of work. Eggman got him with the machine that he tried to use on you."

The thief gasped. "But I took the Chaos Emerald that the old guy used for a power source!" he exclaimed. "How could he catch anybody else with it!?"

"He had a back-up handy. An old generator from back in the day." Sonic began pacing the room, fidgeting with the cuffs of his gloves. "It's a kinetic energy generator that he built years ago, back when he wasn't such a bad person like he is now. People congratulated him for his work; he used to be on the news back on the Eastern Islands, back when I first got interested in humans. A few years later he was using it to power robots that ransacked South Island." Sonic closed his eyes. "That kinetic energy generator… which is powered by enslaved and brainwashed animals."

"That's horrible…"

"Our little friend," Knuckles continued, "was captured after you were freed. Eggman took him over to Metropolis; we followed and ended up watching the entire show."

"The machine you were hooked up to was meant to drain data from people's brains," Tails said. "You could then theoretically dump all that information into somebody else's head and overwrite the original memories, kind of like with a computer. Eggman wanted the data of somebody from the other side of the anomaly, somebody who was going to be more likely to listen to him because they didn't know of any of the things he'd done, and then use that to 'overwrite' the memories of that Mobian. He previously betrayed Eggman and ran away from him."

Kaito rubbed his head. "Judging from what I can guess and from what I've seen firsthand, I'd assume that Mobian… is absolutely no good."

"Wait, firsthand!?" Sonic cried. "You've met that guy in person!?"

"The rat with the gun?" Three heads, three nods. "Of course. I confronted him before I met you. I found later how he shot the officer. Nice man, Takagi Wataru-keiji. I've impersonated him before. It was interesting being in his shoes." Kaito's expression turned sour. "Tails, Sonic, Knuckles. There was a young boy who ran into the house we saw each other in. The rat fired at him; the boy decided it was in his best interests to try and defend what used to be his property, and so buried a soccer ball in the wall. I shot at him with my trusty trick firearm, and he cleared off."

The red echidna shook his head, while the fox and the hedgehog stared blankly into space. The 'rat' never fired at innocent bystanders like that; he only attacked people who got in his way.

"That rat's not been seen since. Nobody spotted him after Takagi-keiji was shot." The young magician snapped his fingers; a burst of pink smoke and a small, earring-like device appeared in his hands. "But I think I can track him wherever he goes. I stuck a tracer onto my old hat, which I ended up having to destroy during the heist. If he tried to write my memories into this guy's brain, then no doubt he'd go for it. This cell phone picks up the signal if the correct number is dialled."

Tails held a hand out, and let the human boy deposit the phone in his hand. "You know what the sighting of this guy means."

Kaito nodded. "Yes, I do. It's changing time. And if it works like it does in television, then Mobius won't be the same when you get back."

"Not much we can do about it, really, except fix what you need fixing and then getting him home," Sonic mused, getting up on the sofa to sit next to Kaito.

MKMKMKMKMK

"Come on, Conan-kun," Ran called again, and the little boy bashfully turned to the corner onto the road to the Beika Library. It was a tall, impressive building which he had visited only a few times before. Ran thought that was a bit odd seeing how book-smart Conan seemed to be. He usually told people that he got all his information, though, from educational television; Ran could barely remember the last time he had watched television that wasn't Kamen Yaiba when hanging around with his friends. Even Agasa testified that most of what they did over at his and Ai's house was play video games and watch the occasional anime on the box.

Which left a lot of holes in that explanation…

The boy in question picked up the pace as the people around them started to walk a little too close and brush his side. He looked alright, although nervous. Despite this not being Conan's usual behaviour, the girl forgave him; after all, usual behaviour had not been on the menu for several days now. "Ran-nee-chan?"

The girl took his hand. "What is it, Conan-kun?" she asked.

"Why are we going to the library?" he asked. "Is it so I can catch up on my schoolwork?"

Ran stopped outside the glass doors. She recalled some bad things happening here, especially the first time that they had been at the library; Conan and his friends had discovered and captured a drug-dealing murderer who was hiding his cocaine in the books and the body atop the lift. The story had found its way into the newspapers in no time. She hoped something like that didn't happen this time around. The boy was certainly in no state to be dealing with murderers again.

"Actually, I wanted to talk with your friends," she said cheerfully. "But yeah, you can ask them what they've been going over in school for the past while. Ayumi-chan told me over the phone today that there was a test coming up soon. I'm sure Kobayashi-sensei won't mind about the homework, but some of the things were very important."

"Oh." Conan breathed slowly, and then tugged on her hand. "Well, come on, then."

Ran let herself be dragged in by Conan, who seemed determined to go meet up with his friends again. She welcomed the change with open arms. The day he'd run away from school, they'd been telling her that he had been deliberately avoiding them, acting fearful. And now he was ready to go and talk to them again. She wondered how he had managed to counsel himself into doing so. Maybe she could use the technique when she was feeling made at Shin'ichi or something.

The quartet of small misfits greeted her as soon as Conan made it to the children's section of the library, and suddenly she found his hand tightening around hers. A sudden spark of fear burst into life. What if he wasn't as ready to do this as he had seemed to be?

She knelt down next to him. "Conan-kun, is everything okay?" she asked.

He looked back at her. "Y-yeah. It's just… who did you want to talk to, Ran-nee-chan?"

Ai glanced at the others.

"I wanted to have a chat with Ai-chan, if that's okay with her," she said. The little reddish-haired girl nodded and walked up to her, while Ayumi, Mitsuhiko and Genta all grouped together around Conan and started talking rapid-fire. It was no surprise that he shrunk a bit under their attention.

Ai took a single look at Ran. "What is it that you need to say?" she asked, her voice cold as ever.

They walked over to one of the tables just outside of the children's section, where they had a decent vantage point at which to watch over the others. "Ayumi-chan told me that you'd been looking up things in the science and psychology sections of the library to try and find out what was wrong with Conan-kun," Ran confessed. "I've been worried about him this whole time, so I just wanted to know why exactly you were doing that."

"…" Ai sighed. "Edogawa-kun is being… something that is definitely not himself," she said. "I'm quite naturally bothered by it, seeing as how we're… friends. Hakase has been treating me well at his house, and I've been open to a lot of mental stimulation, which is why I can look through those books with confidence. I just want to use my intelligence to seek out an answer to the problem at hand."

"So… what do you think happened to him?" Ran asked slowly.

"When did the personality problems begin?" Ai replied. "Edogawa-kun has only been having problems since just before the Kaitou KID heist…" She paused. "The Kaitou KID heist… that reckless thief, did you hear what happened to him?"

Ran rested her head on the palm of her hand. "I did. Apparently, the goal of Kaitou KID's heist was to explore the Shizuoka anomaly. I have it on good authority – by 'authority', I mean Hakuba Saguru-kun, the half-English detective – that he made it back alright. After the heist, you know what happened to Conan-kun. He ran away from school that day and ran into the aftermath of the police officer shooting, just near your house." She rubbed her forehead with her free hand. "And that's where it just starts getting more confusing if you watched the news lately. The assailant was shown on television thanks to surveillance footage that was being taken at the time of the incident, with the problem that it didn't seem to be a human as much as a child in a suit, or a walking, talking, _shooting_ purple monster."

"A giant purple monster," Ai repeated. "Is this related to our conversation in any way?"

"I'm hoping not, but… I have this feeling…" Ran sat up in her seat, taking her arms off the table and resting them on her lap while she thought it through. It was the most confusing hunch she had ever suffered from, but this could potentially be the reason why Conan was acting so oddly. She didn't understand why… it just seemed like the right answer.

She looked Ai directly in her stormy eyes. "I think that the anomaly is directly to blame for Kaitou KID's 'disappearance' and that creature that appeared near Niichoume. And it's also responsible for Conan-kun's personality change, like it's having some kind of… radiating effect on him. And I don't know what was wrong with him to make that happen."

Ai hesitated. A smirk emerged onto her face. "That was exactly what I was thinking."

Ran blinked. "What?"

"That was the most sensible answer that I could come up with," Ai responded. "It's not very scientific; it actually took some imagination to come up with. But I'm proud to have thought of it, especially if somebody else has come to the same conclusion as I have."

"But I know a lot less than you do…" Ran admitted quietly.

"But that doesn't change the fact that we both have the same basic theory," the little girl replied. "Think about it. If two people with different amounts of information available to them come up with the same solution, then there is a large chance that we're both correct. For now, let's ignore the possibility that we might be wrong and walk away from here proud that we could both come up with the same explanation independently, alright?"

Ran frowned. "I thought you were just a shy little girl when I first met you…" Ai looked up. "But then again, I thought Conan-kun was just an overbearing little boy who just looked a lot like Shin'ichi." The teenager smiled down at her. "Just as I now know that Conan-kun is very intelligent, very helpful and actually related to Shin'ichi, I know that you're a lot smarter than you previously tried to let on. And I'm thankful for that. All these intelligent people around me…" She shrugged. "Though I'm a little jealous that you're both that smart, I feel really safe whenever you're all around. Because I know that no matter what my problem is, you'll always find an answer."

MKMKMKMKMK

"Conan-kun, come on!" Ayumi said, handing him a book. "This is what we had to read in class over the past week!"

Conan took it, barely looking at the title (it was some kid's book about God knew what), and opened it up to a random page. Ayumi laughed a bit, causing him to retreat into his shoulders at lightning speed. Mitsuhiko, noticing this, turned the book to the correct page just as Conan looked at him anxiously. He barely noticed the difference.

"Guys?" he said, stroking the edge of the book while he kicked his feet up and down. The chair he was sitting on was quite high; he'd needed the assistance of a doorstopper, as did Ayumi, in climbing up onto it. "Do you know where Genta-kun went off to?"

A gut-wrenching scream suddenly emanated from the direction of the toilets followed by the sound of three gunshots, and Ayumi and Mitsuhiko both slid out of their seats into a defensive position. The other patrons shot up to their feet in shock. Conan flinched, just as Ran hurried over and grabbed him up from the chair. Ai followed quickly, braced for whatever would come out through that door. She glared at Conan, but the look yielded nothing. Some interesting information, maybe. There was the strange appearance of his eyes, looking slightly tired as if he'd seen it all before. By now, yes, he probably would have realised that his mere presence made the country's crime rate shoot up, but this wasn't that kind of face. He looked, more accurately, as if he'd only been waiting for it.

Tension filled the air.

A streak of purple suddenly exited the men's bathroom just a short distance from their table and shot out of the door, just fast enough to blur any distinguishing features. But to anyone who had been watching the news lately, there were no doubts about its identity. Conan froze.

Shin'ichi... Shin'ichi could handle this when he was wearing this face, right? Should he let...?

No.

He closed his eyes and threw all common sense out of the proverbial window, hurrying into the bathroom. "Conan-kun! Get back here now!" Ran cried, breaking into a run. The rest of the Shounen Tantei looked at each other, and followed.

The boy stormed into the toilets. There were only a few occupants, all who had hidden behind a section of wall splitting the urinals and the wash basins. Genta was peeking out of one of the stalls, eyes wide and skin pale. He was staring over at one of the stall doors, pointing at it with a shaking finger. There were three large holes torn into it. Swallowing, Conan examined the door. It was stainless steel. Normal bullets didn't rip through it. What the heck was this alien doing, firing in an enclosed space like that, anyway? Especially a bathroom; didn't he know people could get-

He kicked open the door to reveal a young man with a huge hole in his neck. He was still moving slightly.

No... This wasn't... right, this wasn't normal...

* * *

A/N: Ran and Haibara - a powerful team, but this is the first time they've worked together. In Conan's eyes, the world is ending for Shin'ichi... Has he yet managed to recognise how quickly the status quo is changing?


	20. Ripple Effect

He panted, vanishing into the black limousine as quickly as possible. A hand was outstretched; he planted his Ruger firmly into it, covering himself in the large black coat on the back seat.

"You should probably reload this," said the driver. "One shot left."

To hear that familiar language pouring from somebody's lips was like being doused in a cleansing rain. He cocked his head up, rubbing it against the cushions. "I'm savin' it for the big game, mate," he replied. "Gots me-self a big mission coming up close to the end of the month. I'll be needin' that gun for then, and I ain't droppin' it until all the bullets are gone."

The driver laughed softly, although it came out as more of a cackle, quite fitting for this woman. The creature's ear twitched. There was something wrong about that laugh, definitely, but he couldn't quite place it. "When did you put in the last six bullets?"

"It's tough loadin' one o' these," he mused. "Each bullet's gotta go in individually into its own chamber. But the last time I did it… why, that was just before I came over here. 'Fore you guys 'picked me up'."

"You know those two," the driver replied. "They keep telling the boss they see things. One of these days they'll be… _discharged_." Pleasant phrase, that. Being discharged meant being murdered. Leave no traces: that was the game plan and it worked nearly every time. "And then we'll get to concentrate on our target in piece."

He looked up from underneath the coat. "Our target?" he asked.

"I'm in the same group as you, you know," replied the driver, adjusting the rear view mirror. He glanced at her. She was a pretty young blond human in her late twenties at the oldest, with nary a wrinkle in her pale skin and rather large almond eyes. She seemed more or less out of place in this city, judging from the difference in facial features. She may speak the local language, but he was surer than sugar that she was from out of the area.

Internally, he was swearing at himself, but he didn't bother listening. Once again it was that stupid voice trying to convince him he was getting in with the wrong people. Well, he knew that, idiot. He understood what everybody's conscience would tell them was good or bad, and these people didn't score very many points for decency. He knew what they did. Assassinations. Extortion. Illegal scientific research. They had a grip on the entire world, with allies in every government of every country on this pathetic planet he didn't know whether to call home or not. He knew exactly what was going on in this gang, and he wasn't going to bother to try interfering.

Except, of course, by completing the mission that had so far eluded his new master for over ten years now... He wondered how things could go on for so long without being completed. It was ridiculous, honestly. A farce if there ever was one. Why head an assassination party with a man who could barely hit a clay pigeon from fifty feet?

Out of the blue, he yelped – for some reason the back of his head was starting to throb. He immediately touched the area with his gloved hand and withdrew quickly.

"You okay?" she asked. She didn't care, actually.

"Uh, yeah," he lied, and took a look at his fingers. A small dot no bigger than a pinprick sat on his finger, and it certainly hadn't been there before.

So he was bleeding from the back of the head. Well, it was no serious matter. It had taken a while for that tiny speck to come off; it couldn't be that bad a wound. Still, it was worrying him; he certainly didn't recall where the injury had originally come from. He gingerly touched it again, wincing.

There was a quick rush of pain and he clutched his head. The car slowed as the driver looked back from the front seat. "Are you alright!?" she exclaimed.

"Keep yer eyes on the road, woman!" he snapped. "Ya wanna crash this hunk o' metal!?"

She turned back as fast as she could, and managed to swerve past a huge lorry travelling on the other side of the road. The other vehicle nearly flipped onto its side in its attempts to avoid them, but righted itself just a little further down the road.

He watched wide-eyed as it drifted out of sight in the direction of the library, and turned back in his seat. "Holy…" He blinked, shook his head and stared daggers at her through the mirror. "What in Aurora's name were ya thinkin' then!?"

"I was worried!" she argued back. "You suddenly grabbed your head and screeched!"

"That's 'cause I-" He stopped. "That's… never mind. Keep drivin', lady."

MKMKMKMKMK

The police were rather anxious about the whole matter. A man found dying in the library toilets by a grade school student was not the kind of event you wanted to talk about in front of anybody else, let alone experience, and yet Inspector Megure and Officer Shiratori Ninzaburou found themselves at the scene of the crime, questioning witnesses and examining the crime scene. What had happened didn't help things one bit. This twenty-one-year-old man had fatally injured by a strange unidentified animal and then left to die, as captured by surveillance cameras. The same creature had previously shot at a police officer in broad daylight, which had also been recorded. Both attacks had been random and unprovoked. If there had been a word to describe this phenomenon at all, it was 'inconceivable'.

What seemed even more impossible, however, was the fact that Edogawa Conan, one of the police's most trusted helpers (much to the embarrassment of half of the force) and the most composed person they knew, had apparently lost all resolve on sight of the body. A bullet through the neck wasn't pleasant to look at – and looking at the exit wound was even worse – especially when the victim was still breathing. The officers had been lucky to get there after he had died, and even then…

"We managed to identify the man; not that his name seems to be of any significance." Megure passed Ran a few tissues; she in turn gave them to the child on the floor who kept hyperventilating every now and then. A few people had managed to right him into a sitting position earlier, but it had made very little effect. "A review of the security tapes shows us the same thing that attacked Takagi before. I don't think this thing had a motive for doing this other than self-defence."

"It had a gun. I highly doubt it was self-defence," said Ai, standing next to Conan. She was a cold child, as Division One had seen on many occasions. She seemed to be as smart as Conan, maybe even more so. "There's something more to it, which is certain if we can assume that the creature is sapient."

"How can we assume that?" Shiratori asked, watching as the officers finally picked up the body from its seated position.

"It obviously knew exactly how to handle a gun, for one thing," Ai replied. "And it had to have made the conscious decision to use it, otherwise those bullet holes would have been spread everywhere and it would have run a lot sooner than it did."

Shiratori's breath hitched in his throat. What on Earth…? He knew Conan was special, but there was something very suspicious about that… accurate observation. He would probably need to start watching these kids better at some point. "...Well, in any case... How's the boy holding up?" he said, gesturing to Conan. Right now he had his arms wrapped around his left leg, his forehead pressed against his knee. His eyes were dull, despite their wideness, and he hardly looked too healthy.

Ran knelt beside him. "Conan-kun, is there anything you'd like me to get for you?"

He jumped, not looking up, and nodded slowly. "My pencil-case," he said. "It should be in the bag..."

"Okay." Ran stood up and hurried off to the desk, before bringing back the item in question. She handed it to him slowly; he snatched it up and, drawing his other knee up to his chest, began clutching it very tightly.

"Well, I can't see much else that we can do about this incident," Megure announced. "You will need to write incident reports, but I don't think we'll be able to get to the bottom of this without the co-operation of the Ekoda police force."

At once, Conan's head shot up, although the case stayed secure in his hands. "Why the Ekoda police force?" he asked.

"It's not too difficult to make the connection," he said. "That thing's first appearance was the day after the last Kaitou KID heist in Suruga Bay. He travelled into the spacial anomaly; what happened to him afterwards hasn't been reported. The eyes of the country were on him and the Ekoda police force were there to stop him." He adjusted his hat. "But the information in the heist note that was released to the public shouldn't have been enough to know that it was the anomaly he was headed for. In fact, it didn't seem to relate much to the anomaly at all. There had to be some kind of information that the Kaitou KID Task Force have been keeping under wraps. It explains why that man from that global military force paid a visit to them."

Ran nodded. "I remember that being reported on the news," she replied, thinking back. "But they reported that he was coming to the country on official matters with the government. Did he really go to the Ekoda police?"

"We'll find that out now," Megure said. "The boys will finish up here, and then we'll meet up with Nakamori-keibu in Ekoda."

"Megure-keibu?" The voice took them all by surprise, and they looked down to see Conan standing up. He looked shaky; Ran immediately grasped his shoulder to steady him. "K-Kaitou KID must have exited the anomaly. The creature could be trying to find him. Go talk to Hakuba-nii-chan; he knows a lot about this."

The large man looked at Conan in mild surprise. "I'll keep the possibility in mind. Thanks for the tip." He walked off, stealing several glances over his shoulder at the little boy, who simply stared back with a blank expression.

Ai turned to face him. "And how would you know that?" she asked.

"These things only started happening after Kaitou KID entered the anomaly. As for how I know he's here…" Conan glanced up at Ran, and then back at Ai. "Can I tell her?" He seemed to be waiting for some snapping comment.

He didn't get it. "Go ahead."

"Haibara-chi-…" He cut himself off – was he about to add the '-chan' honorific to her name? "Are you sure?"

Ran knelt down again. "Conan-kun, Ai-chan told me that you've been acting very strangely lately, and that she suspects it to be the work of the spacial anomaly in Shizuoka," she said, hand clenching as a very visible shiver ran up Conan's spine and his eyes widened in shock and fear. "Besides, I already know that Kaitou KID returned. It's okay; Hakuba-kun told me about that. Remember?" She pulled him around to face her directly. "Now, Ai-chan and I have to know what's going on with you. It doesn't help either of us if you don't tell us, and both of us really want to help you. And I know how you often keep secrets from me, like where Shin'ichi is, or how you know everything that you do. For once, I would like to be kept in the loop, okay?

"So please… can you tell me everything?"

Conan dropped his gaze to her neck, silent. Then- "The day I ran away from school, I headed to Shin'ichi-nii-chan's house," he said. "I got a phone call from Agasa-hakase saying that there was somebody in his house and he wanted me to come over to help keep an eye on that person while he called the police. But when heading to the house I found the police, and I got worried for Agasa-hakase." Conan looked around, staring a bit wildly at the Shounen Tantei, who were currently resisting being carted off by their worried parents. "So I went inside his house, and the creature was in there. He shot at me. But Kaitou KID saved my life and made it run away."

Ran blinked, the weight of the words sinking in. "You mean… Conan-kun!"

"Huh?" He looked up again. His eyes were blank again, just as they had been earlier when they had been walking to the library.

"I don't think it's Kaitou KID that he's after!" she exclaimed. "I… I think it's you, Conan-kun."

And he stared at her.

MKMKMKMKMK

Kaito changed the channel, tense as anything. The Mobians had seated themselves already and were all looking around with expressions of insecurity. The last few minutes had been bereft of any speaking between them and, for once, he was glad of that. It was just as well that his mother was out shopping… then again, seeing how the woman had acted recently, it could be just as well that she had predicted this would happen and had left so he would feel more secure. He wondered briefly if there were any hidden cameras in the house, before jossing the theory and reminding himself that his mother didn't need to do any of that to be practically omniscient. She'd raised him alone from the day the police had come to report his father's death. She'd done the job of two parents.

And life had done the rest.

"-_not been caught but it has been suspected to be the same creature that was observed_-"

He snapped to attention, fumbling with the volume controls. "Guys, guys!" he announced.

"Huh?" Sonic's ear perked up, and he began kicking his legs around nervously. "What is it?" he asked. "You've found something on the television?"

"Yeah." Kaito gestured to the screen excitedly. It was the twenty-four-hour news channel, with plenty of headlines scrolling up the side of the screen and the three-dimensional render of the channel logo rotating in the corner. A picture behind the pretty reporter (really nothing more than a figurehead for the company, having next to nothing going for her other than her looks and her ability to memorise a script) showed a large building with police cars surrounding it and a small gang of people trying to get their faces on camera.

"-_of the building right now is Megure Juuzo-keibu of the Beika police department_-"

"Crap… I know that guy…" Kaito shuffled uneasily in his seat. "And that's tantei-kun's area."

The Mobians all stared at the television intently, until Tails turned around. "Kaito, we can't understand your native language," he said. "What's he saying?"

Kaito blinked, and listened carefully to the television. "There was a shooting at the Beika Library. A guy was killed. They're just releasing the name and age of the victim," he added, as a piece of text appeared on the already-overloaded screen. "From all the evidence, it's… that rat you guys know, that I saw."

Knuckles strongly resisted punching the floor. "_Great_," he groaned through bared teeth. "Why the heck's he going around shooting you stupid creatures? Who put him up to this?"

The boy stopped. "…What?"

"He doesn't do this because he just wants to," Sonic replied. "He's a bounty hunter. He does it to get paid. Did this guy happen to be a crook by any chance?"

Kaito glanced at the name again. "I doubt it, then again I don't really know. What do you mean, he does it to get paid?"

"Hunts people down, of course," Knuckles said. "Items too, like that Chaos Emerald you're keeping right now, but usually living things. He's a freelance bounty hunter who also assassinates if you pay him enough.

Sonic's ears fell back as his brow furrowed. "There is a reason that the people back home on our planet… called him 'the Sniper'."

MKMKMKMKMK

About an hour later, Hakuba Saguru and the Kaitou KID Task Force collectively swallowed their pride as Inspector Megure passed through their doors, followed by a few subordinates. All of them realised just what a problem it was to have the homicide department of Beika Division walking in on them, especially at such a time. It was well-known that Beika was the area with the highest body count in all of Japan – indeed, it pushed up the national crime average considerably – but it was very rarely that any of the deaths were ever linked outside. Anything spreading bigger than Beika would be attributed to some kind of conspiracy. And it just so happened that this current conspiracy led into their office.

Hakuba had turned on the television earlier and spotted the news just before it switched over. A sudden chill had run down his spine as he heard it, and he'd called everybody over while changing to the twenty-four-hour version. They'd watched the lengthy report with wide eyes. Hakuba still hadn't told them what the purple thing actually was, not to mention Nakamori had left some time ago. They were all just shocked by the fact that it was an alien who had managed to slip into a library completely undetected by any humans and shoot somebody in the throat.

Which suddenly made the visit even more poignant.

"We would like to speak to Nakamori-keibu," Megure said, arms crossed and back straight. "It's to do with a few incidents we've had involving our officers and a strange creature. We believe that creature to be from the anomaly, and so we came to you for some answers."

"That's a stretch, nothing more," Hakuba suddenly said, causing everybody to look at him. "For all we know, it's a man in a suit."

Shiratori stepped forward. Hakuba knew very little about him. The most he knew was that the man's knowledge was vast, but he rarely had a chance to display his intelligence due to the relatively mundane murders they normally faced. Anything too bad was dealt with by Mouri Kogorou (more accurately, Kudou Shin'ichi as Edogawa Conan, taking on the man's voice using his bowtie voice modulation device). "The forensics team would like to differ. The fur found on the scene was real, but couldn't be matched to any known species of animal."

"You seemed rather defensive then," said a female officer with short hair. "What's your name?"

"Hakuba Saguru. I'm a detective and Kaitou KID specialist." He narrowed his eyes. "And I don't see what that has to do with this."

Megure coughed. "It has plenty to do with this, I'm afraid." He adjusted his footing. "Your name in particular was dropped by the person to discover the body of the man found dead in the library. He told us to ask you about this specifically. Not to mention how Stonewall-gunshou passed through here."

"And who 'dropped' my name?"

"Edogawa Conan-kun."

Hakuba's heart dropped from his throat to deep within his stomach. Things had just gotten bad.

* * *

A/N: You know who he is now...


	21. Are You Ready?

"There you are, Ran-kun!" Kogorou explained as the girl pulled the little boy through the door to their office. The place had seen better days and worse alike, whether on the part of the people inside the room or outside aiming sniper rifles at the window, but there were some high points currently – for example, there were no beer cans lying about anywhere, and the place was very clean and shiny. It looked like the man had finally found enough time (read: 'blatant obligation') to do some of the housework while his child and their lodger had been tied up with the police. "It's nearly eight o' clock. You've been gone for four hours! I was worried sick about you!"

Ran brought the boy over to one of the sofas and sat him down. "I'm sorry, otou-san," she replied. "We had some problems coming here. Have... have you been watching the news?"

The thirty-seven year old sighed. "Of course not," he said. "I've cleaned this place from top to bottom; I haven't had the time to watch anything. That, and just before you came in I had another client, so I'll be snooping around tomorrow investigating."

Conan stared up at him blankly. "I thought the horse races were on?" he pointed out.

"Yes, but I didn't listen to them," he replied. "The only thing I wanted to do was make this place a little more seemly for our guest just then." He marched over to the desk, back straight and stride confident.

Mouri Kogorou was a man you didn't want to meet if you were a crook of some kind. Well, that was what they said about him, anyway. He was tall, and despite his age and apparent thinness a bit of muscle was indeed there, hidden under the dulled blue suit. Said muscle was used quite a bit; back in the day, he had been a judo champion, and he had never forgotten any of the techniques he had learned. His hair was always slicked back except for one or two short hairs that curled down onto his forehead, and he wore a small neat moustache parted at the middle. The man had a piercing glare that often dulled whenever he drank, which was usually rather often. However, as noted before, the room was devoid of any of the cans that normally littered it. Kogorou usually stopped drinking when he was fired up.

Ran glanced around, a little shocked by it all. "Otou-san, did you drink at all today?" she asked.

The man stroked his chin, sitting in his chair. "Well, no... I already knew about this client since he talked to me about coming over this morning, so I didn't bother," he replied.

The girl looked away. It was pretty evident that she hadn't been expecting that kind of answer from such a person. "Well... I'll be going to cook dinner, if that's alright." She knelt down in front of the boy. "You stay here, in otou-san's sight, if that's okay?"

Conan nodded. "Okay," he said, and immediately picked up the one bit of mess that had appeared since this morning, a recent copy of _Shounen Sunday_ with a slightly battered-looking cover and a small fraction of the pages missing from inside it. He flicked through to the _Yaiba!_ chapter and began reading quietly. Ran frowned, and stepped to her father.

"He didn't notice that wasn't there this morning," he pointed out. "Isn't that odd?"

"Otou-san, did your client bring that book?" she asked.

"Yes, he did," he replied. "I mentioned about Conan-kun and he asked if he could bring that over for him. He took out the pages he wanted to keep and brought the rest of the book for the kid."

Ran sighed. "I see," she said. "Well, what would you like for dinner?"

The man rested his head on his fist, turning on the television for the first time that day. For that matter, the radio seemed a little dusty despite how everything else looked. "I'm not too bothered, really," he replied. "Though, curry sounds good right about now, if it'll bring the kid out of his reverie. He hasn't been alright in the head too recently, has he?"

"No, he hasn't." She shook her head, and went into the kitchen. Once there, she opened the fridge door, blocking the voice of her face if they tried looking.

There was something wrong with her father as well. The man never stopped drinking despite the health problems he could face if he continued to do so, and she'd never seen this place cleaned up after getting back from school before. Her father had mentioned a client, and quite specifically that that client was male – something else that didn't usually click, since the only time anything around here was cleaned up was when a young woman entered the room. And even then, the item that was cleaned up was Kogorou, not the room. Not to mention the fact that the horse-racing had been on today and, from the sound of it, he hadn't bothered to watch, or even made a single bet...

She bent forward and took out the vegetables. It wasn't right. There was something wrong with everybody. Conan was acting strangely, as was her father... for once, Ai had actually spoken to her about Conan – which never happened, not even when it seemed Conan was Shin'ichi – and speaking of Shin'ichi, she'd had fewer phone calls in recent weeks. There was also the matter of Sonoko, who had recently stopped flirting with boys, and Hattori Heiji, whose last text had involved him mentioning how she ought to check out a nice place he had managed to locate in Hyôgo rather than his home town of Ôsaka, and there had also been a few messages from Takagi and Satou down at the police department discussing a possible engagement with her... not to mention, Kaitou KID's mysterious disappearance from the map hadn't seem to startle many people after that brief little mention of things the day after the heist.

She and Ai had managed to decide that Conan's awkwardness was the effect of the anomaly. Was it possible it had affected other people as well? She realised how insane it sounded, but there didn't appear to be much other explanation. The anomaly definitely had something to do with it all. Figuring that out had been like a game of Spot the Difference with all the difficulty removed.

She kept scouring through the fridge, anxious to keep her deductions under wraps, when she noticed something that had been inside the cool appliance for a little bit of time.

A pair of milk cartons was sitting in the shelf on the door, one of the two open and nearly empty. Who was it that liked milk in the family again? The last she had checked, her dad did indeed enjoy it in his coffee every now and again, and she was fine for the majority of the time as well as long as she didn't use too much of the stuff. But then again, that wasn't enough of a reason to have bought two cartons at the same time, as milk went bad rather quickly; also, her father tended to take his coffee from the shop of the floor below them. And she didn't use it in any of her cooking. So why...?

Conan! That was right. Conan loved milk, and he wasn't intolerant, so he could drink a lot of it. That was why she'd gotten enough milk for the next week so that he could. Shaking her head to try and forget the troublesome thoughts that had made her abandon the dinner, she opened the vegetable draw and pulled out some ingredients.

She had just gotten out the potatoes when she remembered with a start that the only other person she knew that was able to drink milk was Shin'ichi. Who also loved it.

MKMKMKMKMK

"I hope you now find yourself fully informed," Hakuba said. For the last few hours he had been trying to convince the police of what Commander Stonewall had been telling him in this very room. This was fast becoming the room of the secret, as many of the other officers had been pointing out over the past few weeks; Hakuba had noticed himself that this seemed to be the place they had to go to discuss anything. Partway through, of course, a very livid Nakamori had entered the room upon learning of the detective's actions and almost let off his lid. Thankfully, the response from the small group had assured him that this was not going to cause as much trouble as he had hoped.

By small group, of course we are referring to the officers who had been allowed inside that interrogation room to talk. Hakuba had specifically picked out the officers whose names he had seen alongside Mouri Kogorou's and Edogawa Conan's. That had whittled down the secret-bearers to three: Megure, Shiratori and Satou, all of whom had repeated contact with the boy – no, not boy, teenager. If anybody needed to know about this, it would be the people who were most likely to run into him and most likely to talk to him. That way, it would be easier to get them to disclose the information to him. Currently, the select few were having several issues with his explanation, but the ainoko took confidence in the fact that they were also struggling to find an argument that would stand against his own.

Well, Shiratori and Satou, anyway. Megure was sitting there with a knowing look on his face. He had been the one to demand an explanation; one could only assume that he was satisfied.

"I hope you realise that you're speaking of the impossible," Shiratori said. "You're telling us that beyond that anomaly is another world that is able to sustain living, sentient life."

"That was where Kaitou KID was travelling to," Hakuba replied, nodding. "As I have already told you, his intents were to steal from that world. Unfortunately, he had a way of making it seem as though he never came back."

"But he did," Nakamori continued. "We have the physical proof of a heist note delivered to us just this morning. We managed to locate his target as well, the Morning Guardian." He suddenly turned to look at the boy, who stared back. "There was also something else that KID dropped when he came out of the anomaly. It was something we ourselves gave to him just before the heist. Isn't that right, Hakuba-kun?"

Hakuba paused. "We have a problem with that," he answered, after a little deliberation. "I don't have it anymore."

Nakamori tried his hardest to contain himself. "Excuse me?"

"While I was here giving you that heist note and explaining to you what it meant, it was stolen from my house," he said calmly. "Baaya-san and the maids have been reviewing the security cameras thoroughly, but there are no cameras in the room where the drive was."

"And why is that?" Nakamori said, ignoring the audience.

"Because that room is my bedroom. The cameras are not there because of privacy." Hakuba shook his head. "But there were heavy security measures in place. I don't understand how the thief could have possibly gotten past it all."

Nakamori banged the table with his fist in desperation. "Just great," he yelled. "The Beika police think we're insane and we have no proof to stop them thinking that!"

"Ahem."

The quarrelling pair looked up at Megure, who removed his hand from his mouth.

"I first decided to come to you when investigating the incident today at the library," he said. His two fellows turned to him, brows furrowed in near-identical expressions. "The reason is that I reviewed the security tapes in the library at the time. The assailant crept in and shot a man to death without a single human being noticing and only ran when a small child screamed. He wasn't caught then. When slowing down the film we discovered it was the same creature that had shot at one of our recovering officers the day after the heist and then ran so fast only that man himself could tell us where he escaped to. It was easy enough to make a connection between those two incidents." He nodded over to Hakuba. "Order your maids to slow down the recorded tapes to one-sixteenth regular speed and you'll most likely be able to find it."

"Megure-keibu, the news only reported it as a monster because all the witnesses were saying it was some kind of giant purple rat with a gun," Satou pointed out. "And nothing on Earth can run so fast it only shows up when a video is slowed down that far."

"Which is why I'm pointing this out," Megure replied. "If they get the creature on film the way I've told them to, it'll prove their story."

There was a brief pause while Hakuba conveyed the message to Baaya through his phone.

Once the mobile had returned to its familiar jacket-pocket, Shiratori hummed. "Did we ever ask Conan-kun what happened that day?" he asked them. At once, every ear in the room pricked up. The man was surprised at the response, but mostly at that of Hakuba and Nakamori, who had both tensed at the name. Interesting reaction... but what did it mean? "I take it he's entangled in this?"

Nakamori was quite clearly at a loss for words – Conan had been mentioned earlier that day, in reference to the video Hakuba had just lost. Apparently, Kaitou KID had requested that Conan-kun be allowed to watch it… at least, that was how he remembered Hakuba saying it. And yet, he still wasn't sure how exactly that had all happened. He knew Conan was always up to chasing Kaitou KID every time they requested the Sleeping Kogorou's help in the matter. The boy might even have been the only reason that they bothered to do that at all, and KID seemed to appreciate having him there if the 'tantei-kun' theory proved correct, to the point of treating him as an equal and as a friend. But that thief had already shown his protectiveness – warding Hakuba away from the last heist had seemed to be his top-priority. Why on earth would he mix up a child into this quite frankly dangerous matter?

"...I asked... Conan-kun what happened when I visited the Mouri office," Hakuba noted. Nakamori glanced at him, and immediately noticed his expression. Pursed lips and eyes focused on his hands. "He did indeed tell me about the incident with your Takagi-keiji and the aftermath. He actually ran into that creature. It was hiding at... Kudou Shin'ichi's house when Conan-kun caught up to it. It fired at him, but Kaitou KID was there for some reason or other and managed to ward him away. I..." He shook his head in embarrassment. "I certainly wish I was making this up, but this is Conan-kun's word and I think we can trust it."

"Now that he mentions it..." Nakamori stroked his chin, "wasn't Conan-kun one of two people who Kaitou KID entrusted the tape to?"

"WHAT!?" the others exclaimed. The door got a few surprised glances outside the room.

Megure rubbed his head. "Now how do we know Conan-kun isn't making it all up?"

Hakuba sighed, and knotted his fingers together nervously. God, how he wished this was all over... but to wish that would not be very possible, considering just how far they had come already. It basically went without saying that with everything they knew, and with all the current complications, the end was a long way off. "Kaitou KID wanted Conan-kun to listen to the tape because... because..." He rested his head on his hands. There was still a lot he hadn't told Nakamori despite every warning that secrets were to be punished. It didn't help that he felt like he was betraying everybody involved by speaking about it at all.

"...Conan-kun is the reason why he got interested in the video he hacked from the military to begin with. Because there's something terribly wrong with him." He breathed. He could talk around it. He knew how to. "KID thought it had something to do with the anomaly, but he didn't understand it much... he decided that the jewels that were spoken about in the video – the Chaos Emeralds – might be a cure for it. That's why he left to get them." Hakuba reached into his pocket and fished out the double-sided card he had received. "This heist note here is exactly the same as the one Conan-kun received before the first heist."

Nakamori grumbled about 'more secrets; I'm gonna kill that kid'.

"_The forsaken child looks to the horizon and sees a land beyond the abyss. Upon it, a glow promises dawn's return. Who shall claim that sunrise first?_" he read aloud. "Don't you think that a forsaken child sounds like a description of a little boy like Conan-kun?"

Megure shook his head for once. "But Conan-kun has his family taking care of him at the moment. Nothing sounds so forsaken about that," he said.

Hakuba winked. "Are you so sure?" he replied. "What is the name of Conan-kun's family?"

"Well, his family name is Edogawa...!!" A look of understanding overtook his face.

"Exactly," the lone teenager congratulated him, his hand briefly forming a thumbs-up before flickering back into its original position. The other inhabitants of the room looked from Hakuba to Megure in a small amount of shock.

_Good. I've managed to do it._ He had just had to dodge saying that Conan was Shin'ichi. Not only was it absolutely crazy, but he'd have broken trust as well. The whole point of being Conan at all was to hide away from that organisation that had accidentally shrunken him down when trying to remove a witness to their crimes. "Conan-kun's family is called Edogawa. But the family he is currently staying with is called Mouri. I checked some records." He hadn't – there were no records. He asked Conan very specifically about it instead. "Edogawa Fumiko-san left this country for America a few months after Conan started staying with the Mouri family promising to come back and hasn't returned since, instead paying some money into Mouri Kogorou-san's bank account. His mother practically abandoned him."

"Would the Kaitou KID even have access to that information?" Shiratori pointed out.

Oh, right. "I'd imagine he could work out for himself what happened just looking at the names in the newspaper," Hakuba mused, "or else he could have just met him in his everyday persona and gotten him to talk about it." He waved his hand around, as if trying to bat away any sense left in his words. "An insane move on his part, but this is Kaitou KID that we're dealing with here. I think we can excuse anything along those lines."

"Right, so we've assessed that this message is referring to Edogawa Conan-kun," Megure noted. "But what about it actually proves anything that you have been talking about? I'm sure Shiratori-kun and Satou-kun would like to know."

"Right." The boy read out the note again. "The boy is looking to the abyss and seeing a shining light on the edge of the black. Don't you think it sounds like Kaitou KID is going to bring something to him? The abyss, we can assume, is the spacial anomaly. The land beyond is the other world. The light is the jewel that he carried back with him. Doesn't this occur to you?"

Shiratori rested his forehead on his hand. "I still can't believe you came to that sort of answer," he said. "Edogawa-kun is not in any trouble. And why should Kaitou KID be trying to heal him? The two of them shouldn't even know each other or care that much."

That was it. He just couldn't dodge it, could he?

"That's where it get's confusing," he sighed, bowing his head. "Because Edogawa Conan-kun very clearly is very sick."

"Sick!?" the rest of the room exclaimed. Hakuba rubbed his ears. He had tried and failed to hold his tongue about the whole thing. Well, not entirely; he knew he'd have to tell at some point or other – the truth was unavoidable, after all, especially when it was so crucially relevant to the entire case - but he hadn't realised just how much of a shock that statement would cause. Nakamori had already warned him against keeping secrets, just a while ago. Any more and he'd be given a fitting punishment. He was in for it now, he could feel it.

"Edogawa Conan-kun doesn't me to give out any more information on that," he said, standing. "I've already manage to break my promises to both him and Kaitou KID. I can't afford to do any more damage."

He began to walk out of the room. That was, until Nakamori interrupted.

"_Don't you dare walk away_!" he cried, grabbing Hakuba by the shoulder. "You are going to tell us _everything_ you're hiding!"

The boy froze in place, tensing up. There were a few seconds, and then suddenly Hakuba shot a glare back at him.

"You don't understand," he said. "Kaitou KID has a plan. I am not about to ruin everything he's working for. And Conan-kun's sickness – and the problems he's had for the last two years – if anybody were to find out about them that shouldn't, he could get_ killed_ for it. I am not about to endanger the life of anybody, even if the police need me to be involved. Besides," he scoffed, "don't you think that if Conan-kun had to say anything, he'd have told the police today?"

"What he said," Megure cut in, putting an immediate stop to the argument, "was that the creature could be following Kaitou KID."

Hakuba's eyes widened. "What did Conan-kun look like when he said that to you?" he asked.

Megure shrugged. "He was the most unstable I've ever seen him. Conan-kun has never visibly panicked over a dead body before, but this time he was on the floor hyperventilating after seeing the man. I don't know if the seeing the bullet hole straight through the neck and the man still gasping did anything to help matters, but even when he's seen somebody die before, he's never done anything like that."

Hakuba's fingers brushed over the door handle. He closed his eyes. "…What were you thinking, hmm?" he mumbled. "Why didn't you say a word…

"…Kudou-kun?"

* * *

A/N: If Hakuba keeps breaking promises like this, there's a lot of punishments coming his way.

Sorry it's so late. I had trouble with that scene, which basically exploded into most of the chapter.


	22. Forgeries

Hakuba refused to talk, and Nakamori had thought it might be best if he just disregarded the information. What Hakuba knew might have been vital to understanding the why, but officially it didn't matter at all to the Task Force. However, that hadn't been the best choice to make, and he had fallen into a ridiculously-powerful silence as soon as the words left the Inspector's lips. Angrily, Hakuba had stormed out of the station and walked home, not responding to any phone calls he received. When he got home, the first order of business had been to check the film in person – and damn it, Megure was _right_ about the rat – and then to quietly devour his dinner and desert before heading off to bed.

In the end, when Hakuba woke up the next day, he ended up receiving the message that he was not going to be joining them until the entire thing blew over. So the Task Force were left to prepare for that month's heist on there own, without the teenage detective's planning skills while the ainoko dropped into school, frightening many in the class with his attitude.

It was unnerving to watch, in Kaito's opinion. Hakuba was meant to snark. He wasn't snarking. He was just sitting there with that grim look on his face, answering any subject questions the teacher fed him in a quiet, robotic tone.

Finally, he took it upon himself to call the guy out. Without warning in the middle of History class he stood up, bowed, spoke as many apologies to the teacher in ten seconds as physically possible, grabbed Hakuba by the shoulders and steered him up out of the classroom, all while Aoko stared at his back.

"Hakuba-kun?" he asked. "Hakuba-kun? Are you okay? You seem a little pissed, if you mind the language."

"…" Hakuba leant against the edge of the roof, letting the breeze play around with his fringe. "I've been kicked out," he growled.

Kaito blinked. "Of what?"

"Kaitou KID's heist is in sixteen days," Hakuba replied, hand grasping about in his pocket for his watch. "Sixteen days, and no-one-cares-how-many-milliseconds. I'm withholding information from the police, so they've decided to discount it, as they already know around about where and when the heist is happening and they shouldn't need it."

"And?"

Hakuba glared at him suddenly, causing the black-haired boy to jump back a bit. "…The information I'm withholding… is the entire reason behind this heist and the heist last month, isn't it, KID?"

A small pause, and then Kaito burst out laughing. "Right, right, I forgot about that! You think I'm him, don't you?" he replied. "If it's so important, though, why can't you tell them? I didn't think you were the type to not tell the police what you know."

"Because, if I did that, I'd be breaking a thousand promises to Kaitou KID. Half of which I already have anyway." Hakuba sighed. "And telling the police everything isn't worth it at all if they misuse that information anyway. Not to mention… never mind."

The spiky-haired teenager frowned, walking over and standing next to him. "It's… high up here, huh?" he said, trying to think of a conversation and very easily losing it.

Hakuba scowled. Kaito had never seen him wear such an expression before in his life. "Like that matters," he said. "Tell me what you need to tell me now, Kuroba-kun."

"Well, for starters, if I was Kaitou KID – note the 'if'; I'm not admitting to it if our lives were in the balance – I'd be feeling stood-up by now, you know?" Kaito slipped his hands into his pockets. "Hakuba Saguru-kun is my tantei-san, correct? I think I'd be very upset if I don't see him at my next heist. And to me, it wouldn't matter what Nakamori-keibu told you – if you really wanted to chase me around, you'd be there for me anyway, right?" He grinned. For a second, an image of the Kaitou KID passed by Hakuba's vision, the monocle and hat covering the boy's face and his body enveloped in the white cape. As soon as it came, it went, and Hakuba was left feeling confused about it all. "Well?"

He frowned. "Well… y-yes, I suppose…"

"Good. Now give me a nice manly hug! Unless you don't like the subtext?"

"What are you… oh, dear- Oi, you _git_!" The blond struggled against the sudden embrace, his arms flopping about uselessly under the other's grip. After a few seconds of helplessness he decided he wasn't going to burn like a witch, relaxed and found himself in a bit of a quandary.

He was really ticked off. That was for definite. But he had no real idea why. Sure, the fact that the police had just 'laid him off', for lack of a better term, was harsh, but wasn't it easier to keep secrets when you didn't have somebody demanding you had over all your information? ...No, it wasn't that that was bugging him. Wasn't it because the police were just ignoring what he knew rather than trying to weasel it out of him?

How could they do such a thing? How could Nakamori just give up like that? He knew – he _knew_ that information had to be vital to understanding the whole matter, otherwise Hakuba wouldn't have kept it to himself. And yet he just gave up? It didn't seem right at all. Even his delivery had been off during the whole meeting. He didn't even go past raising his voice. The swearing had been absent, despite how angry he had obviously been; the worst he had muttered was some promise to kill him and shove him in a blender, but that was hardly as disgusting as his normal language. There was something really wrong with the world.

"Gotcha!" Kaito pulled back, and shrugged. "Hey, you know what?"

Hakuba looked at him, feet shifting. "What are you going to do to me, Kuroba-kun?" he asked, rolling his eyes.

The other boy looked genuinely hurt at the statement (of course, you could never tell with him; he was positively brilliant with this sort of thing, as he had proven on multiple occasions). "I'm not going to do anything to you," he said. "You are going to talk to me."

"...Excuse me?"

"Well, you think I'm KID, so in your logic, the information isn't going to be going anywhere, is it?" Kaito offered his hand. "It's just going to go back to KID again. And besides, I could help you out too. I'm a magician myself." And to prove it, he shook his hand, and then reached behind Hakuba's back. Already getting the trick, Hakuba grabbed said hand and pulled up the sleeve of Kaito's gakuran as far as it would allow, then up the sleeve of his shirt. Nothing.

Kaito snorted. "You think I'm going to do it that way?" he said, and pointed behind the other at the edge of the building. The ainoko furrowed his brow and turned around... to see a bunch of flowers. In the centre, wrapped up in paper, was-

"A slice of strawberry shortcake?" Kaito nodded. "You're insane."

"On the contrary, I'm probably the only sane man nowadays," and he plucked out the cake and handed it to Hakuba. "So how about it? We have weekends where we can talk. I'm not doing anything then, and since you just, err... lost your job and all, I think you'll have a lot more free time on your hands than before."

Hakuba frowned. "..." He sighed, and took a bite from the cake. "Alright... There isn't anything in this cake, is there?"

MKMKMKMKMK

For the next several days, Ran grew more and more worried for Conan. The reasons were obvious – after all, how many small children had monsters coming after them, especially ones with guns? The fact that Conan had seen the damaged first-hand was even worse. She couldn't begin to imagine the mental effects it was having on him. And yet, on the outside, the boy wasn't worried or anything, since he kept saying that the creature was after Kaitou KID, not him. She was trying to figure out just how he had come to that decision.

Conan had been going to school again, and there was actually a positive in there: he was starting to interact more confidently with the other children. She'd been surprised when she learned about the little 'welcome back' cards that some of the class (mostly the girls) had made him with Ms Kobayashi's help. Apparently, Conan had been very surprised too and almost unwilling to follow the teacher into the classroom due to the large amount of attention being showered on him; eventually, the Shounen Tantei, Ai excluded, had shoved him in and gotten him to talk to the others. When Conan had come home that first day, the first thing he had told her when she asked about school was, "It doesn't feel too bad anymore."

All of this would have felt like normal development if it wasn't for the fact that until recently, he had been a very well-adjusted child with plenty of friends in the class and teaching staff and had no reason to act like this anymore. In fact, as far as she was aware, everything had only become this way since after the Kaitou KID heist.

There it was again. Whenever she tried to think of anything else, it always came to her like that.

She'd held conversations with Ai again since the third, this time discussing the exact effect the anomaly must have had on him. Ai had been surprised at his recent behaviour, it seemed, and was more than willing to cooperate if it meant 'keeping a few secrets'. Ran had no idea what she had meant by that, but had agreed to those terms and the two had hacked away at a couple of ideas. By the end of it, Ran was convinced. The anomaly was changing people's actions because it was changing around their personalities.

Which led to several questions about the anomaly itself – what was it that it could do such a thing and yet be so far away from them? And, considering that creature had popped out of it...

...Just where did it lead to?

So the days went by, and Ran took to watching the streets. Despite the huge city she was living in, she could always recognise some faces. Suddenly, people that she'd seen driving were riding bikes to work and others were buying different newspapers for different reasons. At one point she swore she'd seen Sonoko walking into a post-office wearing something that didn't expose her stomach or legs to the usual degree all her other clothes did. At another point, that Sunday, she noticed what looked like Shin'ichi walking and talking with Hakuba - huh?

She snuck up behind them and began to follow.

"...this is all about, anyway?" the lookalike said. He wasn't exactly like Shin'ichi, now that she was a little closer. His hair was all messy and his face, when she got to take a look at it, was more pointed-looking. He wasn't dressed like Shin'ichi, either. She was surprised that she'd even noticed him, when he was wearing basically very similar clothes to everybody else in the crowd. Nothing too dark, nothing too bright, just something very plain and not eye-catching, like he wanted to hide himself away or something along those lines. Of course, that kind of ploy had already failed when he decided to walk with a blond-haired teenager at least six feet tall.

"I have no clue," Hakuba admitted. His hands were in the bag balanced on his hip. He was wearing more casual clothes, a white shirt, jacket and brown trousers. He looked rather relaxed, which just seemed unusual for a man she had never seen out of a suit the few times she had met him. "As long as the police had me out of the force temporarily, there's practically no legal method for me to get any information on this thing."

Legal... information? And Hakuba had been kicked off the force... Hakuba had never been on the force. He must have been talking about assisting the police in catching Kaitou KID. Ran could only surmise that they were discussing the heist. But why would he be talking about it to this Shin'ichi doppelganger? Why here?

"Right. There is that." The 'clone' twiddled his fingers noticeably. Well, it had to be for a girl about ten feet behind them to notice it. "Of course, there is also the fact that somebody I might know _might_ be able to hack the computers?"

Hakuba sighed. "I had guessed as much."

The lookalike chuckled. It suddenly became ever so clear to Ran that this was not Shin'ichi – he laughed boisterously, as if trying to kick people when they were down; this person sounded less exuberant and more... devious. "Oh, your suspicions kicking in again?" he mumbled. "Remember, we do not talk of this kind of thing in public..."

"We do not basically _confirm_ this kind of thing in public either," Hakuba replied, grabbing his wrist tightly and holding it for a few seconds while his eyes darted around. She flinched, looking away and walking a bit forward, but stayed out in the open. Unbeknownst to her, a quick blush fluttered over Ran's face as she watched him lean over the other's ear. "Listen..." He whispered something, and suddenly the twin whipped around and noticed the teenage girl with the grocery bags staring right at him rather than at the obvious-looking Brit. A girl who looked very familiar.

He scratched the back of his head. "Uh... hey, Aoko," he said, laughing as he did so. "You didn't see or hear anything did you?"

Ran stared for a second. Then she stuttered out an answer. "My name's not Aoko," she said, concentrating on his face and assuring herself that this was not Shin'ichi mistaking her for another girl who he seemed to be cheating on with a boy, as it did seem to look from a teenager's warped mind. "Hakuba-kun... is this boy a friend of yours?"

Hakuba glanced over at said boy and shrugged. "I suppose he does count as one..." He pulled him forward slightly. "Kuroba-kun, this is Mouri Ran-chan, daughter of the famous detective Mouri Kogorou-san," he said. "Mouri-chan, this is Kuroba Kaito-kun. He is a classmate of mine."

"Pleasure to meet you," the newly-identified Kaito greeted her, bending over and producing a large bouquet from nowhere in particular. "I have to say, you're certainly a very pretty girl. Really, quite stunning, quite stunning..."

"...Oh." She bowed, not wanting to seem impolite. "But... do your classmates often admit to... hacking?" she asked, frowning at the black-haired boy who immediately blinked several times at her.

"He is currently my confidante," Hakuba said. "I do not believe it was your business to be listening in the first place... How is Conan-kun, anyway?"

Ran shook her head. "Conan-kun is improving. You two wouldn't happen to have been talking about the Kaitou KID heist, would you?"

"We would indeed."

"Would it be wrong for me to intrude?" she asked. "I would like to discuss a few things with you, if your 'confidante' is trustworthy enough..."

"I am sure he wouldn't mind," Hakuba answered. "Let's get somewhere to sit down and talk.

MKMKMKMKMK

They found a tiny but crowded café and ordered a few drinks from a small-looking waitress. She was kinda cute, and hurried off after taking everything down. Once they were all sitting around the clean little table and could be sure of no disturbances or anybody overhearing them, Hakuba immediately fired off.

"What is it you needed to ask, Mouri-chan?" he said, clasping his fingers together and resting his chin on them. Kaito sent a few weird glances his way, but other than that he didn't seem too alarmed.

"I've been discussing with a... friend," she began, very careful to emit the fact that said friend was actually in Conan's class and of Conan's size, "about some things to do with the anomaly." She fiddled with the edge of the grocery bag that she had planted on the edge of the table. The bouquet from before was sticking out of it: a beautiful collection of lilies, white roses and chrysanthemums. "I think I need to know a little more about the anomaly, and also what happened when the police went to the Kaitou KID Task Force."

Hakuba blinked. "The Task Force?" he said, the corner of his eye twitching. "Why them?"

"I was present at the Beika library during the shooting," she admitted. "The homicide detective there, Megure-keibu – he told us that he was going to visit them after the investigation there wrapped up."

"Oh, he certainly did," said Hakuba, "and I had a hard time convincing his friends that the creature from the anomaly is not a man in a suit and is actually from another world on the other side of it."

Ran stared for a second. The rest of the cafe continued talking as normal, not paying any attention to them at all. "Um... pardon?"

Kaito made a strange face and sat up from his position of leaning over the table. It was pretty obvious that he did not want to be part of the conversation at all and didn't think he could trust her at all, but if Hakuba said so, he must have guessed it was alright after all. "The thing that shot that police officer and that guy in the library?" he replied. "Really short, large head, spindly arms and produces real, albeit purple, fur – that's not a human you've got, that's a full-blown alien monster. And a smart one at that, if it can fire like that."

Now that she thought of it, Ai had said it was sapient.

"Conan-kun told me... oh, thank-you," the waitress had just come back with a tray, on top of which were a cup of Earl Grey, a tall glass of juice and another filled with coke, the latter two with straws, "he told me that the monster was going after Kaitou KID."

Kaito seemed to pale, although his face didn't change. But Ran had always been good at noticing the little changes in a person's body language. She supposed it was just due to being her father's daughter. His hand was twitching slightly.

"After... Kaitou KID?" he repeated. "Does he have any evidence?"

"No," Ran replied, "which is odd, because Conan-kun never says anything unless he has a particularly strong hunch, or enough evidence to back him up. Just like somebody I used to know..." The last part was muttered, but she was sure Hakuba had caught it, because he shifted slightly. "But a lot of people I know have been acting a little odd lately anyway. And I've noticed... it all began after Kaitou KID's last heist. That's when everything just seemed to become crazy."

Hakuba smirked. "I'll admit, 'crazy' is how I'd refer to it," he said. "You say everybody's been acting strangely?"

She nodded. "Yes. Otou-san has been cleaning up the house for his clients; my friend Sonoko-chan has been dressing more formally and spending more time on her schoolwork; Shin'ichi... stopped calling; oh, and okaa-san, recently, started sending letters to otou-san. She never does anything like that." She took a sip of her juice. "I've been thinking – me, and the friend I mentioned earlier – that it's the fault of the anomaly. People have been changing."

"People are like chemicals," Hakuba said. "They react to the passage of time and the world around them. Sometimes it doesn't look like they're the same person they used to be."

"You're thinking of catalysts, huh?" Kaito jabbed. "Catalysts speed up reactions. Maybe the anomaly is the catalyst that's causing all this awkwardness?"

"Nakamori-keibu hasn't been swearing lately," Hakuba noted, turning to him. "Nakamori-chan hasn't been chasing you around with her mop."

"You were cursing your arse off at the beginning of the week because you were thrown off the case," Kaito continued. "Is this really all the effect of the anomaly (?), because I don't understand half of these changes at all."

They looked at each other uneasily, and all went for their drinks. Within seconds all three had been downed, and there were empty cups on the tray.

"Did you say Conan-kun thought the creature was going after Kaitou KID?" Hakuba finally spat out. Ran nodded. "What did you say to him?"

"I told him that... it couldn't have been going after anything but him," she said slowly, stirring air with her straw. "The only connection between the two shootings is him."

Now Kaito very visibly paled. Both of the others caught it in the corner of their eye, and looked to see him wearing a completely serious look. It didn't suit him, Ran thought; that was Shin'ichi's face when he found himself offering condolences, and it didn't match Kaito's apparent nature at all. "The only connection...?"

"The only person involved in both incidents..." Hakuba explained.

Kaito looked down at the table. "Oh..." From what Ran could tell, he really wanted to be out of there.

* * *

A/N: Things have been stranger lately... The anomaly seems to be affecting people in the strangest of ways.


	23. Building Up the Tension

Things finally began to pick up at last down at the station, and within a few days they had compiled a full press release. It was on the thirteenth of March when Nakamori decided to go and warn the owner of the target that was to be taken.

The target in question was the Morning Guardian. Well, it wasn't a jewel, per say – it was a large necklace. The force had found it quite odd to name a necklace the 'Morning Guardian' until Hakuba had pointed something out – the centrepiece of the necklace was a large brilliant cut of dark chrysoberyl, or alexandrite to be more accurate. The gem here was a ridiculously dark shade of turquoise in normal light, but at the light of a candle became a warm red, like the sunrise. Watching the candle through it made it resemble a sun rising in the sky; hence its name. Apparently the darker the colours were, the more money it cost… Nakamori couldn't imagine how many times his pay-check this gem on its own would be. The rest of the necklace itself (pure gold and diamonds as big as fingertips) was costly enough as it was.

The Morning Guardian was currently on show at the Tennou Museum, which was a very large museum in a relatively small town to the East, like Hakuba had mentioned. When Nakamori had reached it, he had needed to swallow several times – the building did not suit the rest of the town. Whereas the houses and the shops had all been plain and modern, the museum resembled an old castle. Indeed, a few signs at the door referred to the place as such. He couldn't believe such a place was likely to exist in such an unnoticeable area.

Unfortunately, he could believe the owner. Joukaku Houseki was not the kindest of women, especially when it came to the police – or anything regarding the necklace, to be honest.

"Get out! I don't need the police snooping around here!" she yelled, trying to push him out of the door. The men accompanying him looked around uneasily.

However, he held his ground as best he could, planting his feet firmly on the floor. "You don't understand, Joukaku-san!" he grunted. "The Kaitou KID is going to try and steal the Morning Guardian!"

The woman stopped, and smirked. "Oh, and your proof?" she said. "Did he leave a note telling you exactly what he was going to take?"

"No," Nakamori began, "but we had a very famous detective from overseas analyse it, and your museum gave the best results. Of any place he could have come to, yours would be the most likely."

"And which detective said that, hmm?" she snapped. "Try me. I'm a big detective fan."

There was a short pause. "Kudou Shin'ichi-kun," Nakamori suddenly blurted out.

Mrs Joukaku stared at him for a second with the kind of eyes that only a vicious fan-girl could make. Nakamori stepped back, having dealt with this kind of person hundreds of times before at previous KID heists and knowing exactly what they were capable of when excited. "…You're kidding me."

"No, no," Nakamori cried, waving his arms around. "I'm serious! Kudou-kun gave us the hint! Please, Joukaku-san. May we please place a guard around the Morning Guardian on the twentieth of this month?"

"Yes, of course you can!" Mrs Joukaku cheered. "Go ahead! Go ahead! If it's a deduction from Kudou Shin'ichi-kun's mouth, of course I'll accept it!" And she cheerfully ran off, leaving Nakamori to blink.

MKMKMKMKMK

"'Police Unveil Kaitou KID's Next Heist'," Aoko read off the newspaper that Kaito was studying in class the next day.

Kaito closed the newspaper with a flourish, complete with confetti and a sound vaguely like a cat yelping after a dog had snapped in its direction. Yes, he could even something as simple as that ridiculously over-the-top. It happened to be a Kuroba speciality, or something along those lines. She wasn't entirely sure what 'speciality' meant, and she didn't want to think about what his other specialities were. "Kaitou KID is going to steal a diamond and alexandrite necklace from the Tennou Museum in six days!" he announced. Then he blinked, and ran over the text again with his thumb. "Huh. He's been leaving Tokyo a lot lately, hasn't he?"

The girl glared. "He's an international phantom thief," she replied. "I would think leaving the country would be more normal for him."

"Hmm, good point." He turned around in his chair and chucked the paper at Hakuba. The other boy had been staring quite blankly at them from behind, and just managed to catch it before it struck him upon the forehead. "Oi, Hakuba-kun, what do you think about it all?"

"It's the correct location," the blond replied, stroking his chin as if he had a beard. "It's certainly the one we managed to pin down after decoding the note. But you don't find that funny?"

Kaito and Aoko glanced at each other, and then got up out of their seats and walked other. Only a couple of students – Keiko, Akako, some kid with glasses named Yamada and his few friends – were present, and the teacher wasn't going to be present for another ten minutes or so.

Once they had reached his desk, Hakuba took out a highlighter and, much to Kaito's surprise, highlighted a paragraph. "I'm talking about this bit here," he said.

"You could have just pointed at it," Kaito mumbled. "You didn't have to go doodling all over my paper."

"You threw it at me," Hakuba pointed out. "Anyway… as I was just saying, I was the detective who helped the police locate the target. But here, the owner says that she would gladly 'follow _Kudou Shin'ichi-kun_'s orders if they led her off the edge of the Earth'." He frowned. "Or something along those lines that I wouldn't want to know about. I wonder why she said that…"

Kaito snatched up the paper and glared at it. "You're kidding me," he said, glancing over the quote. He had to hand it to Hakuba; it was a wall of text, and he wouldn't have been able to find it if it weren't in neon pink. Huh... he'd have to ask about that one later. "That has to be the first time they've printed his name in... actually, I can't remember the last time I saw it."

Internally, Kaito was swearing. There was a reason Kudou Shin'ichi's name no longer appeared in the papers, and that was the Black Organisation. If his name were to start appearing, they'd realise that they hadn't killed him and would come back to find him. And the Organisation had only ever failed to execute three people in their time...

"Oh, no, no, no..." He folded up the paper and then tossed it down the secret tunnel in his desk.

"What's wrong?" Hakuba asked.

Kaito blinked. "Well, don't you think that Kudou Shin'ichi-kun's gonna be a bit mad when he finds out about that?" he asked.

MKMKMKMKMK

And, as you guessed, he certainly was.

Conan shot daggers at the newspaper that Ayumi had brought in. Well, it wasn't intentional, really – sometimes Shin'ichi seemed to take over for a brief second or too, just to do something strange. Conan hardly noticed it until afterwards, when the warm and cosy feeling of an older brother's hug would begin to fade, and he was suddenly reminded of how alone he really was. However, this time, Shin'ichi wasn't letting up, and the small boy was feeling a lot less comfortable then he would have done. It was understandable, but that didn't make it any more pleasant.

Ai glanced over his shoulder slowly. "Edogawa-kun?" she said. "Is something wrong?"

Conan stopped staring at the paper, and the metaphorical grip on his mind receded. "Why is Shi- my name on here?" he mumbled.

"…" She raised an eyebrow, turning her head away but keeping him in her sights at all times. Conan liked Ai, but sometimes all she did was scare him. "Did you just stutter?"

"No!" he exclaimed suddenly. "I didn't stutter!"

"You're calling yourself 'boku' again."

He shrunk into his shoulders. "…I am?" He jumped, and bit his lip. Yes, he was. "Sorry, Haibara-chi-…" He stiffened, and shook his head. "Never mind that. Why is my-" and this time, he carefully enunciated the 'ore' in place of 'boku', "-name in this woman's quote?"

Ai panicked. Ai was funny when she panicked: her face turned whiter than usual and she began twitching slightly. Her eyes always shrunk to the size of small dots. Her hair even puffed up a little, like a cat's fur rippled when threatened. If Conan wasn't as aware of the situation and was a little braver in general, he'd probably laugh his head off at her. "Your name is in that newspaper!?" she cried, a little louder than she should have done, because it called over the Shounen Tantei as soon as that had happened.

Mitsuhiko, surprisingly, was first to snatch up the paper and began scanning through it, much to Conan's horror. "Did you say your name's in the newspaper, Conan-kun!?" he repeated.

"I didn't even know!" Ayumi said excitedly. She and Genta both gathered around Mitsuhiko's back, eyes shining brightly like stars as they started looking through it. After a while, their faces fell; Conan guessed that it might have been because it wasn't his name specifically that was actually there, was it?

"I was so hoping our names would get in there!" …Wait, what?

_Oh, yeah_, Conan remembered, taking the paper back quietly. _They want to be famous detectives like Occhan, and I'm the one the police will remember. So if my name was in there, they'd immediately think they'd be there as well._

A quiet voice in his head replied. _There's still the question of why my name is there_, Shin'ichi asked him. _I'm pretty sure Hakuba Saguru-kun was working on the case; so why did Nakamori mention my name?_

MKMKMKMKMK

Sonic flopped on top of the futon, shaking his legs. "Hmm."

Tails blinked. "What is it?"

"I just feel… adventurous." The hedgehog began kicking his feet out behind him, closing his eyes. "You know. We've been stuck in this house for a while now. Sure, I've been interested in a lot of the stuff here, but after a while, I just want to get moving."

"I understand." Tails nodded. "It's only going to be a little while, then Kaito will give us the Chaos Emerald and we can go back home."

Sonic opened an eye. "What makes you think so?" he asked.

"I was with him when he planned his jewel heist," the younger Mobian explained. "He told me before we delivered that note to the blond boy that if he's decoded the entire note correctly, then the whole thing is going to blow over in about a week."

The other sniggered at the idea. Things were never that easy, were they? He could vouch for that – heck, they'd wandered over here with a plan in mind, one that had gone very drastically wrong as soon as they'd landed. That was just why he never bothered to trust a plan. "Right, a week. Let's cross our fingers." He pushed himself up onto his feet and walked over to the bookcase, looking at the spines. He and Tails had been looking at these books when they'd discovered that they'd gone back in time, hadn't they?

And that had really been when things had gone topsy-turvy.

"So, we're in the past…" He smiled. "It's awkward, when you think about it."

"Nobody really knows how time travel works," Tails explained. "You could change everything by standing somewhere, or maybe you'd have to do something similar to what _he_'s doing and get the entire world to notice you. Or maybe this is actually a stable paradox. And what effect is it going to have on us?"

Sonic flexed his fingers. "When I was six years old, I spotted my name in a history book and thought nothing of it until right now..." He cocked his head. What a weird concept to try and grasp... "Yeah, I can imagine that kind of situation."

"Will we be able to return home, I wonder?" He span around to look at the fox, whose namesakes had dropped to the floor. He was hunched over in thought, his piercing eyes trained on an ant that had crept into the room. "If I step on it, will it cause an apocalypse on Earth in the future and stop humans from ever travelling to Mobius? Will our species have remained as undeveloped as it was three hundred years ago? Or would it not make a difference at all? Will everything still happen the way it already did despite this ant's life... Or have we already made all the changes that'd cause that by just being here?"

"Who knows…? Let's not muse about that anymore." Sonic rubbed his ears. "Where's Knuckles, anyways?"

At this point, Tails broke into a little giggle. "Oh, he's outside in the garden," the fox explained. "Apparently, Kaito's mom noticed the flowers weren't looking too good. And Knuckles was kinda curious as to what she was doing and went outside to see. He noticed her bent over the flowerbed with a depressed look on her face. So he's out there helping her do the gardening."

"What kind of thing is he doing?" Sonic asked, furrowing his brow.

Tails covered his mouth, shaking for a little while as he tried to stop himself. "He's helping spread the fertiliser."

The giggle became suddenly infectious as the hedgehog realised just what exactly that meant. "He's handling shit... isn't he?" he muttered.

When Tails finally managed to spit out a much-hampered confirmation, the pair of them broke into uncontrollable laughter, made even more so by Sonic's own ridiculous cackle. Outside, the echidna and the human glanced up at the window in confusion. Knuckles blinked, nodded in recognition, and then pulled at her arm, gesturing to some of the begonias in an attempt to distract her from what he knew could only be his spiky blue 'acquaintance'.

Back in the room, Sonic sighed, and stretched his arms upwards to try and rid himself of the ache in his sides. "Well, he seems to be doing it pretty well, don't you think?" he said, leaning against the bookcase with his hands in his spines.

There was a little silence again, during which the hedgehog and fox each took furtive glances at each other. To tell the truth, although he was so happy to be here and to be seeing everything from the history books, Sonic was a little uneasy, and he knew exactly why. It was the set of problems Tails had just brought up. The only time he had ever travelled in time, he had done so to erase the most spectacular debacle of his entire life: in other words, to deliberately manipulate time to the path he knew it would lead to. It had worked, quite obviously, seeing as the next moment everything had appeared to have been just a dream. It had taken him a few weeks of obliviousness to realise what exactly had transpired in the alternate timeline.

But this time, he hadn't even known he was going back in time. And this time it was back much further than before, going back hundreds of years before he was even born. The first time, it didn't matter to him what changes he made – he was only changing the future. But here was different, and it was only now that he had realised just how damaging time travel could be.

And the scariest part of this was that he didn't even know if they were going to get back home. Since the best laid plans of Mobians and men often went awry...

MKMKMKMKMK

The silver-haired man had almost given up on it all.

It had been a hellish few weeks for him and his partner, simply trying to adjust to the way things were right now. They had been on their way to a meeting when the creature (whatever thing it was that the boss had decided to adopt) had stumbled into them. What a pleasant little meeting that had been. All it had gained him was a bit of recognition from the higher-ups and a deep scar on the back of his hand. Well, that, and some nostalgia.

They hadn't done anything that unrehearsed for about two years now. It brought back memories... very bad ones. About the last person who had fallen victim to a pipe in the back of the head.

And dear lord, for a short while that had been the worst scandal they had ever been faced with. The constant insults and laughter when they had finally turned in their reports had been unbearable. They'd been found out blackmailing an executive by a teenager with a disposable camera and one hell of a natural instinct for trouble and suspicious characters. The only way to stop the berating had been to reveal the name of the person they had 'assassinated' – for they weren't even sure it had actually worked – and watch the ensuing reaction with a sense of minor satisfaction. After that, there had been very few people trying to step in their way, bar two, and that was only because that was how things worked in the Black Organisation anyway.

Well, that, and there were very few women the boss had favoured anyway. Only his prima donna, the actress Sharon Vineyard, held any particular authority; other women, while powerful in their own rights and their own personal fields, would not dare to act the same way that she did. Sharon was just lucky that she didn't get punished.

Luckily, the creature hadn't been assigned to them, but to a separate branch taking care of one Tokyo district and one very special target. That had only ground on his nerves; the new recruit, a thing in the most frank description, managed to end up as a professional assassin in the most exclusive party of the whole syndicate, while he was stuck quietly doing away with the lower class scumbags. There had been a reason for it, though: the discovery they had made watching the late night news that it had shot at a police officer in the hand earlier that day. That had supposedly meant a lot and almost immediately after it had recovered from its concussion it had been taken to the firing range and given a semi-automatic pistol and the regular old plastic silhouette stand-ups.

It had hit a vital area every single time. Didn't matter which, really – head, neck or heart, they were all good targets when you had a particularly big gun to waste on a human. The pity was, as the rumour went, that the creature only really favoured the gun it had been found carrying around with it and wouldn't think of finding a new cartridge for it. He'd wasted enough shots from it as it was. One bullet left. And the higher-ups intended to make him use it on the so-called 'big game'. No guesses as to who that was.

_Well_, he thought as he sipped his plastic cup of coffee, _at least I don't have to work too hard today._

He unfolded the newspaper and opened it, scanning through as fast as he could. He didn't have too much time to waste this morning. There were a few things to do, a few places to visit, a few people to say farewell to...

Wait a second.

The coffee nearly dropped from his steadily-loosening grip.

Emblazoned clearly in black ink on the newspaper, right in the middle of an article about the before-mentioned big game... was the name of the boy who had caused the mess two years ago. And there was no way in hell that he'd ever forget it. Kudou Shin'ichi.

His mobile phone rang. He checked the caller ID; it was his partner. "Moshi moshi?"

"_Aniki! Have you seen_-"

"Yes, I have," he cut the other man off. "Vodka. Contact ano kata and inform him immediately, then report back. Have you got that?"

"_Y-yes, aniki. I'll do that._"

"Thanks." He hung up roughly, thoroughly infuriated. It looked like that boy's detective games were still ongoing after all this time, posing the best question of all:

Where had he been hiding to be able to dodge a global crime organisation for this long?

* * *

A/N: The best plans end up as the worst disasters... as demonstrated here.


	24. Lucky SlipUps

He had been resting in the firing range when the blond woman ran in with the news.

"You, get up," she ordered immediately. Well... okay, not the news exactly.

He simply blinked at her. "What's up?" he asked as nonchalantly as he possibly could, taking in her appearance. She was certainly very flustered-looking; he doubted he'd ever seen her sweat so much in the short time they had been acquainted. In one hand she clutched a newspaper, in the other was a suitcase that didn't seem to contain anything yet.

"The boss wants to talk to you," she said. "Get up and go to his office immediately."

He nodded. "Fine, fine, if ya insist, Sheila. But first, ya tell me what's goin' on 'fore ya order me around."

She crossed her arms. "My name is Rose," she corrected, before returning to the topic. "He's going to mention this anyway. They spotted the name of a certain young target of ours in the newspaper," she said.

He stared at her. She had the most serious expression on her face and, at the same, this couldn't be anything more than a joke. Nobody got themselves as worked up about a name in a newspaper article as this. "Yer kiddin' me, right?" he said, relaxing again. "Surely a name ain't gonna kill ya, is it? What's so special about this name?"

"It belongs to a dead man. One we ourselves killed two years ago."

He blinked again. She was glaring at him in the most intense fashion possible. "Ya really ain't kiddin', are ya?" he asked. She shook her head.

He had never run to any superior so fast in his life.

MKMKMKMKMK

When he finally reached the office, the only thing he could think to do was bend over by the door and clutch the back of his head as it suddenly erupted into pain for no reason at all.

He remembered running through corridors shooting away at large robots that were launching themselves at him, then walking with the lightest step through the very air as the people looked up from below, then holding somebody he didn't remember very clearly at gunpoint while reciting the best speech he had ever said, then standing on stage holding up a large green gem while he gestured to a timid young girl in the background, then the ugly face of a bald man bending over him and showing him a document on some kind of material that he couldn't remember, then the face of a small but beautiful child who looked up at him with alarm despite the bottle rocket he had behind his back.

He remembered the wind whipping his fur around as he ran at speeds that seemed impossible, the feeling of soaring through the air and being as light as a feather, the cameras all trying to train themselves upon him as he moved. It didn't matter what terrain he was crossing or where he was flying. He could remember himself moving through every place he'd ever been too, and not recognising a single one, and for the life of him couldn't understand how this was all possible when he was just standing there. He tried to fight back the wave of memories, but soon found himself losing and trying to discern whose life each short clip belonged to instead.

Whenever he tried to think, he found himself realising – in so many of those memories there were no people around for miles. Nobody he could recognise as sapient anywhere. And then he got to others, and there were people, humans. Sometimes hundreds, at points even thousands. And they were all staring at him. And then finally he saw the others who looked like he did, and he found himself feeling so comfortable there...

He dragged himself into that office.

"Ya wanted to see me?" he said, the pain dulling as fast as it had appeared.

"You may have heard, but-"

"This dead kid's name appeared in the paper?" he replied.

The boss smirked. "Why, yes indeed. She told you, then?"

"I demanded to know otherwise I wasn't comin'." He crossed his arms. "What's it to do with me?"

"The article his name appeared in... It detailed where you might find your target. Do you think you could..."

He grinned. "Think I could? Yuh're underestimatin' me again. Lemme remind ya not to do that."

"Confident, are we?"

He shrugged. "I dunno. My head's been killin' me these last few days an' I don't think anybody's really happy about me bein' here, but..." He shook his head. "Never mind any o' that. I'll get them both with the same shot. Though, just in case, what's the name?"

"He's Kudou Shin'ichi. Teenage detective. It would be helpful if you disposed of this little rat, especially for you."

"Why?"

"We may have found you a path home. Just take them out and all will be perfect."

Home... where was home? They told him the anomaly – the strange thing up in that place with the funny name ('She's-woke-a'? Weird thing to call a zone). He wasn't sure, but he thought they were right. This place didn't seem right at all. And yet... when he had gone to kill that traitor at the library, something had rung familiar with him. Coming back had felt _very_ familiar, especially when they had passed the pool club, he thought it was. To be honest, he had no idea what was going on, and he needed to find out what.

So he agreed. The exchange of Kudou Shin'ichi's figurative head on a platter for a trip back inside the anomaly to figure out whether it really was home. It couldn't hurt to give it a try, could it?

And as he walked out of there, he could swear he heard somebody screaming.

MKMKMKMKMK

Lunchtime had not been the best time for Nakamori to sit down at his desk. About a dozen different phones had begun ringing as soon as he had done and, at the moment, one of his inferiors was currently panicking and trying to answer every single one of them at once. It looked and sounded exactly like chaos.

And, according to the young man, they were all calling to ask just how they had found Kudou Shin'ichi.

Right now, Nakamori was so ticked off at himself. How could he not remember? Kudou Shin'ichi had been missing for such a long time now that they were ready to pronounce him dead, except for the word from Division One that Megure and his gang had quite recently met up with the boy. Every time he had shown up, he had demanded his name not appear in the newspapers and disappeared just as suddenly as he had done that day.

But he'd forgotten that. Well, it wasn't his fault – he didn't deal with Kudou Shin'ichi at all, so it would have slipped his mind. So he'd just blurted it out in front of that lady. Of course a random journalist had managed to pick up the name through an interview, and here the office was, the very next day, in anarchy while the assistant clumsily told everybody to hold on the three phones he was attempting to carry on his arm.

Another phone rang, and rather than have the poor man suffer, Nakamori himself picked it up.

"_Nakamori-san, what were you thinking!?_" yelled the familiar dulcet – but slightly accented – tones of a certain British detective.

"What the hell do you mean?" he replied.

"_The name Kudou Shin'ichi._" Nakamori rubbed his forehead. "_There's a reason – and a ridiculous one at that – to why his name does not, under any circumstances, appear in the newspaper._"

"Well, why don't you tell me what it is!?" the inspector yelled back.

Hakuba was silent for a second. "_I'll just tell you this. The Beika police simply follow their orders from Kudou Shin'ichi-kun whenever he states that his name cannot be entered into any newspaper or official report, no matter what happens. You would do well to understand that._"

"I only said the name because that lady would never have heard of you! I had no-"

"_Joukaku-san is just like me. She's an ainoko - and half-_English_. You should have been able to tell that almost immediately from the fact that her eyes were green._" Nakamori swore into the receiver, making the boy on the other end suddenly laugh. "_Good to hear you're still swearing. You seem to have been trying to cut down on it. Speaking of cutting down, you may want to try and stop smoking out behind the police station when you absolutely have to remove yourself from the room. It's hardly doing well for your help._"

Nakamori rolled his eyes. "As long as I'm stressed, no, I'm not quitting smoking just yet. I haven't been cutting down on my swearing, just finding much better times where I'm on my own to let out the verbal heavy artillery. And eye-colour's never helped me in any respect, especially going around here," he replied, taking a sip from the coffee cup on his desk. "Is there anything else you won't be refusing to tell me, Hakuba-kun, or should I just hang up on you right now? And if there is, make it useful. I don't need any more shit to try and work off here."

There was another pause on the other end. He drummed his fingers on the table as he waited.

After a bit, Hakuba finally spoke again. "_I assume you mean... you need me to stop making excuses and tell you the information I am still withholding?_"

"Yes, that's precisely what I'm telling you."

"_I guess I have nothing else to do, then._"

And he hung up.

MKMKMKMKMK

Kaito watched, gobsmacked, as Hakuba defied orders once again. "...You... You just did that, didn't you?" he said, struggling to get his bearings.

Hakuba merely placed his mobile phone into his pocket. "Stop staring at me," he said, brushing his hair back from over his eyes. Kaito nodded the absolute determination in them. "It's the only answer that I can give to him on that question."

"It's the withheld information that got you dismissed... as far as you can be?" the black-haired boy replied.

"That's correct." Hakuba started walking back to the fire escape doors. "It's something I really can't tell anybody, otherwise it might signal the end of the world as we know it."

"So it involves Kudou Shin'ichi-kun?"

Hakuba turned around. He wasn't exactly amazed at the words but, somehow, the fact that Kaito had managed to come to that conclusion so quickly had surprised him. "Clever little deduction there."

"Didn't think I had it in me, did you?" Kaito replied. "If it's to do with that guy, then I'm going to just ignore it."

"You're not interested?" Hakuba said, blinking. "I would've thought you were."

Kaito shook his head. "Of course I'm interested in what happened to him, but my focus isn't detectives, is it?" He sauntered over, looking at his feet, before coming to a stop right next to him and staring him straight in the eyes. "Sure, everybody who's ever heard of Kudou Shin'ichi-kun's amazing reputation wants to know – why did he disappear? He was so close to the top when it happened, so why would he want to fade away like that? But-" he shrugged, "-even if I'm taking on the role of your confidante, you don't want me to know, do you?"

Hakuba sighed. "A man of his word, through and through."

"To be as noble as a phantom thief, one must always be sincere and never lie," Kaito replied. "The only exception is when you make your escape – even if you're honest about where you're going, always confuse them about your exact exit point."

"Speaking from experience?" the blond remarked, and Kaito rolled his eyes.

MKMKMKMKMK

Conan found himself walking home with Ai that afternoon. The girl had demanded in class that she be the only one to go with him, and the rest of the Shounen Tantei had been unable to argue with her once Mitsuhiko had caved in. Conan didn't blame him for it, neither did he particularly mind that he was going home with her. She was a nice person despite her biting nature and he liked her when she was herself. Besides, Shin'ichi said it was alright, citing an earlier conversation where he had already mentioned it, and he was going to listen to Shin'ichi's words. So they began walking, uninterrupted, for quite the while.

It was then when Ai broke the silence, and the tension along with it. "Are you worried?" she asked.

"About what?" he asked.

She rolled her eyes. "About the name, Kudou-kun," she replied. The name took him by surprise, but Shin'ichi assured him that it was fine.

"Oh, well..." He fidgeted with the sleeve of his jacket. "A l-little, I suppose..."

"You should be more worried," she replied. "I can only imagine what Gin and Vodka are saying to each other."

A quick search of his memory yielded some results: Gin, a man in his later twenties or thirties with long silvery-white hair and a slightly skeletal face; and Vodka, a shorter and stockier man with a strong jaw, hat and sunglasses. They were the men who had unknowingly dragged Shin'ichi into hiding. "What's the likelihood they don't read that particular paper?" he asked.

She grimaced. Oh, dear, it was a bad answer. "The last I saw of Gin," she said, "and bearing in mind that was a long time ago, he was carrying that particular newspaper in his hand. Though I imagine it got into the national paper as well. Kaitou KID is an internationally-famous phantom thief, and Kudou Shin'ichi a nationally-famous high school detective. I highly doubt that your name _didn't_ get thrown into the latest copy of the _Yomiuri Shinbun_." That didn't sound very good. "I just wish to know who the journalist was that managed to get that interview."

"Yeah," he replied blankly. Many newspapers didn't have their reporters' names next to the articles they had written. It was just a fact of life, but a frustrating one.

"You know something?" she suddenly said, and he jumped. She wasn't looking at him, but her confident stride told him enough. "You've definitely changed."

He tried to make himself look smaller, but it wasn't really working, seeing he was pretty small anyway, even compared to Ai. "I... have?"

"Yes." She took a look at him, and the only thing he thought he saw was the sparkle of awareness. They both slowed down to a halt on the busy street. "You're not Kudou Shin'ichi-kun anymore, are you?" she asked him, shifting her body slightly so that she appeared more demanding.

Conan bowed his head low and placed his hands in his pockets, and wasn't surprised at all when she pulled them back out, turning them over to check for whatever she thought she could see. Of course she'd have figured it out by now. She wasn't an idiot – no, she certainly, definitely was no idiot and would never be one at all; that was physically impossible – and this had been disturbing her for a while now. Knowing her, she'd have pursued every other possibility known to mankind and plenty more besides.

She continued to stare him down. "Well?" she said. "Am I correct in thinking that you're not Kudou-kun?"

He knotted his fingers together and suddenly realised he needed his pencil-case from his bag. He had to hold something, to grip it and know he was still there. "...I..." He had messed up on his personal pronouns again, calling himself 'boku', and this time he had no intention of correcting himself.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"...Conan," he said. "My name is Edogawa Conan." He put out a hand, slowly, but surely. "It's nice to meet you."

"Are you even aware of how serious this is?" she hissed. "You are not supposed to be Edogawa-kun... and by that, I mean that you're not meant to have his mentality. You're meant to be Kudou-kun pretending to be Edogawa-kun, do you understand?"

He nodded quickly. She was up in his face now, and it just didn't feel... nice. At all.

She seemed to notice her mistake, though. "What has happened to Kudou-kun?" she enquired, backing off a little. "What exactly is going on in there?"

"Well..." He looked around. There were a lot of people. It had shocked him already that he'd managed to come so far already without panicking... And he'd still had the problem just ten days ago. He'd really recovered, it seemed. "Me and Shin'ichi-nii-chan... I think it's been happening since that first day. When he was attacked and he made up my name. I don't really remember what happened at all... but he and I have been splitting apart. Shin'ichi-nii-chan thought that..." He paused, and she made a gesture for him to keep talking. "He thought that if we split apart, he might never be able to return to normal. But Kaitou KID's message gave us hope."

"His message?"

"He told us that he was going to find us a cure... but since the night of that heist, things have just been getting worse. Shin'ichi-nii-chan says he's going to be alright, though, because Kaitou KID will save us and make us better..." He wrapped his arms around himself. "He's been looking really sick. His arms don't move anymore. And his legs..."

"What about his legs?"

"They're not there anymore." He grabbed out at the nearest thing he could find, which happened to be the girl's jacket. She didn't move or berate him, and he did care. "He doesn't move from his chair. But he still smiles despite everything that's happening, because Kaitou KID will save us and make us better, and that's what he says. He's still so calm..." Conan sighed. "I don't understand how Shin'ichi-nii-chan can be so calm about it."

Ai looked at the floor. "That doesn't sound anything like him."

Conan nodded. "I just want Shin'ichi-nii-chan to be okay," he said. "He seemed so…"

"Grim."

"Hmm?"

Ai offered her hand. "Edogawa-kun… Kudou-kun may have resigned himself to his fate. But you're worried about him and so is everybody else who has ever known him. And to find out just now what's really happening to him…" She gripped his shoulders, watching how he didn't flinch. When it had been Shin'ichi, he had always done so every single time. Maybe Conan just wasn't scared of her, or maybe he was too used to being grabbed like this… she'd find out the answer sooner or later. "I promise you that I will try whatever works to help you… both of you."

The next thing she knew, the little guy had bowed as deeply as possible, coming back up with a red face and his eyes scrunched shut. "Th-thank you, Haibara-chan!" he replied. She didn't mind it.

* * *

A/N: The last of alliances before the big day...


	25. Shin'ichi's Illness

The nineteenth approached a lot more quickly than Kaito was ready to believe, and soon he found himself on a bus to the edge of the prefecture with a few changes of clothes in his arms and Jii, his mother and the aliens in a car not too far behind. He was wearing yet another of his disguises – a young American woman with the messiest bleach-blonde hair, an upturned nose and a garish pink shirt stretched over her generous cleavage. Kaito – no, 'Katie' – personally revelled in this character: a bubbly, rather attractive-looking foreigner with terrible control of her Japanese and only the slightest recognition of native customs; in other words, the kind of person that any salaryman would certainly not show the slightest affection to. It stopped anybody getting to close to him in his costumes, at any rate.

Hakuba would probably be the first to notice him missing, he mused as he turned up his MP3 player. Yes, of course the guy would, but there would be an explanation for this… that he would probably come up with later, when he had a little more time to think about that and to stop concentrating on the actual heist itself. He wasn't so big on winging it, but he wasn't sure of there being a decent explanation for a student and his mother leaving town on a Wednesday when his final exams were coming up so soon. So he'd probably come up with one later.

Sighing, he clutched his bag and made a note of the current time. Seven-thirty-eight in the morning. He'd woken up at the usual time for school, realised it might actually be a good time to start moving and immediately alerted his mother and the three Mobians as to his idea.

"You wanna move now?" Sonic had said when he had heard.

"Isn't it a bit dangerous?" Knuckles had asked, speaking up for once. "That kid Sonic and Tails told me about will probably figure you out before you so much as take a step."

Kaito had shrugged, unable to discern which 'kid' Knuckles had been talking about. "I know it's risky, which is exactly why 'that kid' will not consider it," he replied. "Think of it as a form of reverse psychology."

Reverse psychology was all well and good, but it made things a bit too obvious. So he'd had to dress up in order to move, although he hadn't done that at home. He and his mother had had a great time trying to explain to the neighbours just what they were doing moving a trio of large, realistic dolls from some obscure video game into their car (his mother had quite handily noted that they were talking them to a children's hospital for the kids to play with) and when they had gotten to the Blue Parrot, Kaito had transformed himself into a young woman, snuck out the back and ran to a bus stop about a block away while the others took Jii's own vehicle.

Right now, despite enjoying the disguise, he wished he didn't have to be in such a public place as a bus when wearing it. This stuffed bra itched like no-one was going to believe. Mumbling slightly, he glanced out of the window and watched the 'scenery' passing by.

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It was that morning that Hakuba had walked in to see the chair that Kaito normally occupied. The heist was tomorrow, and already he'd decided to leave for the target. He sighed, wondering how stupid Kaito really thought he was, and sat in his own seat glaring at that desk. Once again, Kuroba Kaito had, in a move of incredible and inspirational recklessness, excused himself from school so close to a Kaitou KID heist that he was starting to wonder whether or not he was just trying to screw with the blond's mind.

Of course, he knew this would obviously be what Kaito wanted him to do. He'd never said that Kaito wasn't a sly one.

"Hey, Hakuba-kun?" It was Aoko. She was twisting her cuffs nervously and glancing every now and then at the troublemaker's chair. "Have you seen Kaito?"

He tipped his head. "Unfortunately, not," he replied, "but I'd bet he's headed to Kaitou KID's heist."

Aoko furrowed her brow. "Why would he go today? The heist is tomorrow."

"A head-start, possibly. Kuroba-kun does not operate on logic, although he usually has almost impeccable time-keeping." Hakuba pulled out his pocket-watch. "I assume he's going to try and get to the KID before I do."

"You're _going_!?" Aoko exclaimed, the outburst making quite a few members of the class look over at them. Even the teacher's entrance did very little to shift their attentions. "But I thought you were taken off the Task Force and weren't going to be working with them, Hakuba-kun! If you go without authorisation from otou-san, you'll be arrested!"

"Nakamori-chan. Do you remember the identity of my own father?" He fiddled with the collar of his gakuran, looking around the room. "He was recently promoted, wasn't he? He came back from a business trip this morning and I doubt he'll be too happy to hear how his son has just been pushed away from the investigation." Initially, his father had not been too happy about his running around and solving crimes. However, that had been over two years ago, before his first Kaitou KID heist. That was when it had happened – Hakuba had nearly caught the phantom thief in question, outstripping most of the police's top men in his wake. He'd never been more impressed by how easily he'd handled it. Right now the man was more than happy to allow him to do so. In fact, he encouraged it.

"I don't think he's going to be able to convince him," Aoko replied. "Otou-san's been rather angry about you lately. Apparently you know something?"

He closed his eyes in exasperation. "If he thinks he can get it out of me via his own flesh and blood, he can forget it," he said.

Aoko blinked. "Get you?"

"Nakamori-san knows that if he rants around you long enough, you begin to talk about the same things as he does," Hakuba replied. "He probably realised that he could use you to help drain the information out of me. He certainly forgot who he was dealing with."

"Otou-san wouldn't do that!" she retorted. "That information could be really vital to catching Kaitou KID-san! If you don't give it over to him it could get everybody into serious trouble."

Hakuba applauded her. "And you just demonstrated exactly what I just mentioned." He began curling his fringe around his fingers, unable to meet her eyes. "He's obviously desperate."

Aoko shook her head in denial, and continued to mess around with her sleeve. She clearly didn't want to think her father would go to such lows just to squeeze it out of him, and he didn't want to think of it either. Nakamori was a good friend and rival to him and they had been partners since they'd met. It just didn't seem right for him to try anything so really… underhanded.

"He should be desperate."

He looked up, as did everybody else. Koizumi Akako was watching the empty desk.

"If Kaitou KID does not move correctly, we should all be worried." She turned to Hakuba. "The black wind howls for all of us if our visitors do not leave as soon as possible."

"Visitors?" The class broke into a fervent mumble, and Akako stared at the board. And Hakuba's mind was reeling. Hadn't there only been one visitor so far?

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"He's going to be making his move tomorrow," Rose said, handing him the gun. "Do you think you're ready enough?"

So far, he had been wasting twenty-six hours (thankfully not all at once) of the past forty-eight on the firing range testing his new sniper rifle, his old Ruger still on his belt with one bullet in its chambers. He had only eaten health bars since he'd first arrived, although a sizeable number of the organisation had been both studious and condescending enough to ask if he wanted a vole or two. He slept sparsely for three hours each time he had a break from his shooting and right now was only just waking up. And she knew all of that. So it was no small wonder that her question made absolutely no sense to him.

He glanced down at the rifle. "'Course," he replied. "If I weren't, I'd've gotten outta 'ere an' ran for the nearest airport."

"You think an airport would help you?" she joked.

"I thought a _plane_'d at least put some distance 'tween us, but now yuh're talkin' like that, maybe not." He aimed the barrel and shot a hole directly in the shoulder of one of the most distant figures. Huh, nice. "Anyway, what's yer problem? I'm fine. I'm prepared."

"The boss said a few things to me," she replied. "About you, mentioning to him that 'your head's killing you' when you went to him two days ago."

He looked away.

"That day, in the car, you suddenly jumped forward screaming when you touched the back of there. Now show me the back of your head."

Scowling, he wheeled around for her to inspect it, and suddenly the rush of memories came back again, nearly knocking him down in the process. He swore he felt bullets shooting past him as he ran, though he couldn't remember whether the bullets were fired by robots or law enforcement, or whether he was running to the edge of a building or a huge steel door, and at both he knew there was the risk of him dying. He clutched his head as he collapsed face-first onto the floor, cutting his bottom lip from biting it, screwing his eyes shut, and all as the hat on his head – was it really his hat? For some reason it was beginning to kill him, he couldn't remember whether it was or not – fell to the floor and Rose could see finally the full problem.

She gasped, and he turned around in his panic. Rose looked like she was about to be sick. Trying to fight the pain, he stood up on his own two feet and stumbled over to her, grabbing her hand. Then it happened again – a shooting pain in the back of the head, threatening to paralyse him. He gulped. The feeling of being captured washed around him.

What he hadn't noticed since his appearance last month was the three huge scars in a triangular pattern near the peak of his skull, and the giant scab in the centre of it. The huge scars from the machine that had been plugged into his brain that night.

"I'm fine," he repeated, calming down as the memories began letting up again and he found himself standing in the firing range again.

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"It's tomorrow," Conan announced. "Kaitou KID…"

Shin'ichi nodded softly, gathering up enough strength to clutch onto his sleeve as he rested his head on the boy's shoulders. Their real body was back in the classroom, once again asleep – it startled Ai less now that she knew what went on when he slept, and she had been able to convince Ms Kobayashi that she no longer thought catching up on his sleep in class was a problem – while they found themselves back in the library of the Kudou mansion, or at least its illusory form in a more tattered state. They were curled up together on the rotting armchair, Conan devoting himself to keep holding onto Shin'ichi for as long as possible and Shin'ichi devoting himself to smiling and trying to put one on Conan's face.

And, the truth be told, Shin'ichi was starting to find it a problem to do either one of them, let alone both.

It had been easy to convince himself in the beginning that it wasn't the end; that end being the one he thought the most obvious – the death of Kudou Shin'ichi. After all, Kaitou KID knew of the shrinking problem at the least (how, he had no idea, but Kaitou KID was no threat) and had told them outright that he was going to save him. KID never did anything unless he was sure of himself. If he'd sent that note, he knew how to fix the problem. Shin'ichi had been waiting for a cure for so long, a real cure, and Ai's temporary pills just weren't cutting it anymore. So he had told himself – yes, this would rescue him. Everything would go back to normal.

But then time had passed, and everything had just gotten worse. A confident Shin'ichi who had been trying to hide away this new, soft side of himself had deteriorated into a grinning idiot who couldn't even move properly and depended on what was, in its most basic description, an active and growing personality tumour. Things had been fine before Kaitou KID, when he was just adjusting to the fact that his alter ego now really was an alter ego. After that heist, though, the body and all its senses had exchanged hands. He could no longer even see Ran without Conan's help, and since the boy had made the conscious decision to trouble her less and less, that also meant Shin'ichi had to look through the photograph albums that now piled up beside his feet. And whenever he did, Conan usually joined him, and Shin'ichi found himself acting like a father.

Acting like a father to what was actually_ himself_. The world was going mad.

A photograph album was open on what remained of his lap right now. He had been teaching Conan about the time he had lost his friends in hunting grounds and ended up saving the life of a young bear cub when the interjection had come.

"Yes." Shin'ichi put on his smile again. He hoped Conan didn't notice the cracks at the sides of his eyes. "Tomorrow we'll be saved." He'd be saved. If everything went well...

…then Conan wouldn't be there anymore. Shin'ichi would be alone in his own psyche again, the way it should be for every human being. Huh, that actually felt a little depressing to think about. He hadn't expected himself to feel so depressed at the thought of setting everything back to the way it had been nearly three years ago.

Conan, oblivious to his thoughts, frowned up at him. "What'll happen if… if Kaitou KID doesn't get to us in time?" he asked, staring up with huge eyes.

"…That's not going to happen." The boy jumped a little. "Listen, Kaitou KID will set things right for us, okay?" His grip on the child's sleeve loosened. "And then… we won't have to worry about a 'what if'."

"So you really _are_ worried." Conan flopped over onto his chest, grabbing his collar and messing with it lazily.

"I'm worried that you're worried." Shin'ichi pressed his forehead against Conan's, nudging him into an upright sitting position. "Come on, now. You have to have faith in these kinds of things. Less pessimism, more optimism, and the problems will disappear before your eyes."

Conan looked around the room, scratching the back of his head. "Huh. Optimism…" He nodded. "Y-yeah. It'll happen. You'll be you again!"

It was strange, certainly. When Conan was the most oblivious, he sounded like he knew everything.

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That afternoon, 'Katie' stretched out on the hotel bed. 'She' had needed to transfer over a few more buses when trying to get here and all right after a plane ride to Tokyo International Airport, and right now 'she' was absolutely exhausted. At least, that was the story Kaito had fed to the hotel staff (in English, no less) when asking to check in as a foreign female guest. A few (forged) identity checks later and he found himself in a room of his own, free to rid himself of that itchy stuffed bra and that silly wig… which he didn't. If another member of staff walked in on him when he was removing it, he'd have to explain himself.

He felt the duvet beneath him, taking a moment to think. By now, his mother should have been able to sign into another room, and the Mobians should be in her bags. She was checking in as a nature photographer; the bags were going to be lifted up into his room by Jii, and then he would be leaving.

And speak of the devils, a rather large-looking golf bag suddenly slid through the window. Kaito ran over to pick it up and unzipped it; Tails poked his head up and narrowed his eyes at Kaito before recognising him.

"Are there any cameras in this room?" he asked, catching his breath. Kaito had to feel sorry for him; he didn't think that golf bags had very good ventilation. Yes, a form of ventilation would make the bags weaker, but it was the concept of the thing that mattered here, really.

Kaito shook his head. "There shouldn't be," he replied. "I doubt they'd put up cameras in a guest room. They could be accused of being perverts."

At once, Tails' eyes were drawn to Kaito's fake breasts. "T-that's… really, really goo-"

Just then, the second and third bags arrived, cutting the fox off. He looked away from Kaito ridiculously slowly (what could Kaito say? 'Katie' was an… _impressive_ young woman) and then ran over to open one of them up, revealing Knuckles. The echidna looked ridiculously overheated, sweat pouring off his muzzle, and Kaito began fearing for the cleanliness of his Kaitou KID costume. Poor ventilation indeed. Meanwhile, Sonic managed to undo his bag from the inside, and poked his head out.

"…Sweet! I like this place!" he exclaimed. "Look, they've even got a big cushy bed!" His eyes drifted along over to Kaito. "Hello, lady! Now _that_'s a welcoming party!"

Kaito laughed, waving his 'hair' around. "Oh, thank you. I try my hardest to look sexy, you know," he said, reverting back to his normal voice. Sonic's jaw dropped in shock, and he was sat there mumbling to himself for a few minutes.

Knuckles decided to speak up. "Hey, kid. Whatever your name is."

"It's Kaito." Surely he should have remembered that by now…

"Yeah. Kaito. You do know how completely reckless this is?" the Mobian barked, scratching at his dreadlock-like spines. "That Hakuba guy has probably worked everything out and is chasing after us as we speak! And what's going to happen if somebody sees us!?"

"You guys are going to head into that wardrobe, flop over and pretend you're all 'Katie's' dolls," Kaito replied playfully. "And to be honest, if Hakuba's worked it out, I'm not really surprised. He's a clever guy. And I'm not all that worried either."

"Except for the fact that if your identity as a thief is revealed then either you'll be arrested by the police or you'll be killed by the big bad monsters that are out to get you," Sonic commented, returning back to the world. He pulled himself out of the sports bag and began sniffing the contents of the room, before coming up to the dresser. In a strange and conversational manner that Kaito hadn't seen since the video, the hedgehog immediately started chewing on its edge, before washing his arms. Huh, must have been a new smell.

Tails frowned, and he swished his tails around slightly as he made his way over to the bed and hopped up to sit on it. "They're right, Kaito. This is a really risky move. I hope you know what you're doing."

Kaito removed one of his brown contacts. "I should do. Go in, grab the jewel, encounter my friend, save his life and then hop out of there. The phrase, I think, is 'piece of cake'."

Of course, the following night would never go so easy.

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A/N: It's almost here, the day of reckoning. And finally we've dived into Shin'ichi's head - is that really what he thinks?

I'll be frank (no, my name isn't _really_ Frank) - I need to take a break from this for my exams. Chapters will likely come in late, though I intend to make sure that they still get finished.


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